Question Where to set up an e-commerce business (product)? Advice?

[Deenica]

Hi,
I'm looking into options to incorporate an ecommerce business- homeware (non electronic) products. I'm a Polish-British citizen (temp in Australia). The product will be made in Italy and sold in the UK and the US via my web on Shopify (no employees, I'll use third party for warehousing and delivery; won't use FBA, it's not dropshipping either).

Would anyone have any advice (while I'm waiting for consultation with a tax advisor) which country would be suitable to incorporate or share their thoughts (anything I should be on the lookout for)? I'm considering Panama, Estonia, maybe UAE. Would be also interested to hear how I can draw salary/earnings from the business without paying tax (or at least minimizing it.)

I'll be leaving Australia but happy to travel around and stay 3-6 months in different countries (wouldn't really want to live in any of the aforementioned countries).
Thanks for your help.

 

[Fred]

Hi,

coming from the Dropshipping Business and incorporated back in 2016 my first E-Commerce Company in the UAE:

What I can tell you is that if you deal with PayPal you will face huge problems with Offshore Jurisdictions like Panama.

So no matter what a Tax Advisor mention to you your focus should be on the Merchant Accounts and if they work with the Offshore Jurisdictions you have chosen.

As you mention you want to travel around you will face problems with Real Bank Accounts as they typically require a physical permanent presence. However for te UAE there are easy workarounds so you only have to keep your residence Visa active with 1 visit to the UAE every 6 months.

In other cases I won't see it that tight because still Estonia and Panama can be used with some of the EMI but not in case of the Merchants - PayPal requires outside the EU bank account in the country of incorporation and even inside the EU they force you to use bank accounts in the country of incorporation if the main currency isn't EUR like in Poland they force you to withdraw in PLN - no EMI for PLN in Poland available and so on. Same goes for Card processing - gets tighter every year. Imagine how Stripe worked 5 years ago and how they work today.

 

[fshore]

I'd recommend the UK. If you are a UK non tax resident there is no tax on salary in the UK (could be where you work from if course).