The gist is that certain countries have a better business and banking infrastructure than others for entrepreneurs looking to establish a global company. This isn't necessarily specific to the US—and we'll be expanding Atlas to more countries—but the US is a solid starting point, based on what many entrepreneurs in emerging markets already do.
For example, incorporating in a place like Delaware allows companies to issue stock to employees, makes it easy to raise money from global investors, and provides the stability of clear corporate rules and case law. (Most Fortune 500 companies are established in Delaware). Getting started with a US incorporation also makes many more services accessible to you, that might not be available if you incorporated in your own country with less support for new businesses.
It's a personal decision, for sure, but if you're in a country where you're finding your business constrained by the lack of particular banking infrastructure or access to business services, we think Atlas can help.
You can't just open a new company in another country and expect to start moving your revenue to it, it just doesn't work like that. For instance, I'm registered in the UK and would have a tough time telling HMRC 'oh that's my US company, nothing to do with you'. It's a completely different problem if you already run a business and want to open a US branch. That's the same for pretty much anyone in the EU.
I think that needs to be made more clear in the schpiel.
Can you expand on this? I don't understand a problem here.
In much the same way as the US treasury want's a piece of US citizens worldwide earnings, I believe.
You really do not want to mess with HMRC in the UK. They will chew you up and spit you out without a care in the world if you don't play by the rules.
It kind of does work like that? Granted, it depends on how you structure it.
I confess I'm not privy to how taxes work in the UK, and that further I'm not an accountant but: I too am responsible for a US and non US corp. You may have to declare your US corp as an asset in the UK, for all I know.
That said, if you have a US legal entity that is booking revenue then HMRC doesn't have any jurisdiction. That USCorp pays US corporate taxes just like any other.
If you move any of the US income to your UKCorp or your UK resident person then the Crown will happily takes its cut.
The US company will pay 20% UK Corporation Tax on (worldwide) profits and need to fill out CT600 each year.
You will probably be able to pay lower taxes in the US as a result of double taxation treaties, but it's going to be a very tedious task to organise.
In my jurisdiction, to my knowledge and experience, they're considerably more lax.
If it was just about registering a company somewhere else and your home tax authorities had no jurisdiction, every company in the world, small or big would be incorporated in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands only.
If a company is controlled from the UK, you can bet your bottom dollar that the UK tax authorities have jurisdiction. Only a very small minority, mostly less well-developed countries allow you to incorporate elsewhere without having to pay tax and report where you are.
Corporate tax residence internationally tends not to be a matter of where a company is registered, but from where it is effectively controlled. This is a matter of fact, not a matter of paperwork, so you can't get around it by just appointing a buddy to sign papers who lives in the right country.
Not only that, incorporating elsewhere opens a world of complexity, pain and double taxation. A simple example: A US LLC with more than one owner is usually taxed as a partnership - eg, US tax is due at individual marginal rates. The UK on the other hand treats US LLCs as "opaque", which means they'd want to tax it as a corporation (there are legal cases to this fact). So a UK resident LLC owner could end up having to pay up to 39.6% tax in the US, then 20% AGAIN on the very same income in the UK, before having extracted a single cent from the company. Then if they extract money from it, there's an additional up to 38.1% dividend tax, for a whopping 90% marginal tax rate.
Now, double taxation treaties _may_ come to the rescue, but I wouldn't bet on it being without a fight through the courts to prove they apply.
There's no reason Stripe's selection of a payfac provider should (strongly) influence it's selection of a corporate/startup banking bizdev partner. Atlas is linking companies up to regular corporate banking services.
I am pretty sure there are many more people like me.
In a lot of countries where Stripe et al. are not available, PayPal (shudder!) is the only way to collect payment from customers all over the world, and even PayPal isn't available all the time.
For example, in my country of citizenship, I can use PayPal to collect payment from foreigners but not from people in the same country, so I would be forced to maintain two payment processing systems (a domestic-only gateway as well as PayPal for the rest of the world) and add a lot of friction to the sign-up process if I incorporated there.