What is best? Seychelles holding company owns HK company or HK company with nominees?

[electric]

I am looking to maximize privacy, so that it is more difficult to trace "ownership" of anything to me personally. What is the better setup?


1. Create a Seychelles holding company (not using nominees) which is the director/shareholder (owner) of a Hong Kong company.


2. Create the Hong Kong company using nominee director and shareholder.


Some notes:


- I will work for the Hong Kong company as an "operations manager" and draw a salary. I will pay personal income tax in my home country on this amount.


- The HK company will have a HK bank account. Only I will have access to it.


- The HK company will need a merchant account. Would it be easier to get this in one scenario or the other? Or does it make any difference?


Thanks!

 

[Zqq]

I don't know how many threads you have started and posts you have posted about this now, but option #1 is no longer particularly good since Hong Kong from 2014 will require human directors.


If you seek anonymity, look for another jurisdictions or use nominees.


Hong Kong merchant account is almost impossible to get without a local company. Keep in mind that using a Hong Kong merchant account may not be very wise if your customers are American and European, since many banks block non-regional (non-American or non-European) transactions.

 

[electric]

I don't know how many threads you have started and posts you have posted about this now,

Quite a few. As I am doing my research and investigation into my options... I'm asking slightly different questions to try and get a complete picture of how things work. My fear is that I will pull the trigger on a structure that later turns out to burn me because I didn't ask the right question... I'm a big fan of getting as much info *before* I make a final decision that I'll have to live with for many years (and could potentially wind up costing me a fortune or worse).

but option #1 is no longer particularly good since Hong Kong from 2014 will require human directors.
If you seek anonymity, look for another jurisdictions or use nominees.

I've been really struggling to find out any information about the new rules that are coming up. All the different offshore service provider's I've spoken with say they have no knowledge of this upcoming change.

Keep in mind that using a Hong Kong merchant account may not be very wise if your customers are American and European, since many banks block non-regional (non-American or non-European) transactions.

About 90% of my customers are North American and 10% are EU. May I ask what you recommend for a jurisdiction to get a merchant account? Ultimately, I don't really care where the merchant account and bank account are located, as long as it isn't costing a fortune. My business is very low risk (less than 0.05% chargeback ration over the last 12+ years of onshore processing).


(A big part of the reason I thought HK would be good for the company and bank account is because then I can use PayPal to accept payments. I have a lot of customers that pay with PayPal, and it's a decent backup to the merchant account, too... just in case.)


What do you think? As I mentioned.. I'm doing my best to get as much info as possible. It's surprisingly difficult to find information, so anything you can point me toward would be very helpful.


Thanks!

 

[Zqq]

Quite a few. As I am doing my research and investigation into my options... I'm asking slightly different questions to try and get a complete picture of how things work. My fear is that I will pull the trigger on a structure that later turns out to burn me because I didn't ask the right question... I'm a big fan of getting as much info *before* I make a final decision that I'll have to live with for many years (and could potentially wind up costing me a fortune or worse).

I'm sorry if I sounded harsh, but it sounds like your last couple of threads have been identical.

I've been really struggling to find out any information about the new rules that are coming up. All the different offshore service provider's I've spoken with say they have no knowledge of this upcoming change.

http://www.cr.gov.hk/en/publications/docs/ec5-2012-annex-e.pdf


CR - New Companies Ordinance - Overview


Hong Kong

About 90% of my customers are North American and 10% are EU. May I ask what you recommend for a jurisdiction to get a merchant account?

Usually I'd say Cyprus if you're an offshore company, but that is obviously a horrible idea right now.


I have set up merchant accounts with banks in UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Mauritius, and Latvia using Maltese and Gibraltar companies for websites facing Europe and USA. These companies pay between 0 and 10% corporate tax and process significant volumes per month. I see very few declines due to banks finding the merchant bank suspicious/too risky or being out of region.


I avoid banking or really anything US-related other than accepting customers there. Canadian banks are years behind European banks when it comes to merchant services, from what I have seen and heard.


So my recommendation would be something along those lines. Maltese and Gibraltar companies can be anonymous if structured correctly. This can make the merchant account opening process more tedious and you usually have to accept a rolling reserve, at least until the bank trusts you enough.

(A big part of the reason I thought HK would be good for the company and bank account is because then I can use PayPal to accept payments. I have a lot of customers that pay with PayPal, and it's a decent backup to the merchant account, too... just in case.)

I know of some offshore companies that set up payment processing companies in PayPal-friendly countries only to accept PayPal payments on behalf of the offshore company. I'm not sure if PayPal likes - or even allows - this structure, though. Another option is to use 2CheckOut, but they are expensive.

 

[electric]

Thanks Zqq, that gives me some info I can look into.


This stuff sure is complicated. (Or maybe I'm just over-complicating it all.)


I really wish there was some kind of reputable service where I could pay a fee to have a personal consultation from an "offshore industry" expert. If you set up something like that, I would be your first customer.


In my head, I know exactly what I want (and think I need)... but the more I look into things the more I get confused and I end up back at the beginning.