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Comment by agopaul | Hacker News Reader

As a non-US citizen, opening a company in the US is not the hard part. The hard part is figuring out taxes and legal "configuration" in your own country, where you live. I'm not an expert, but I hear from accountants that you have to figure the thing out properly and you end up having an accountant for your company abroad and one for yourself. It might end up being too much expensive if it's for a bootstrapped startup with little revenue.

Happy to hear from people in EU that made this work and what are the total costs (especially tax-wise in your own country).

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Be aware that incorporating in another jurisdiction doesn't mean your operations aren't taxable according to the local laws of where you are.

For example, if a company is incorporated in the US, but all it's employees/owners are physically located in Germany, then under German law, the "place of ordinary business" is Germany, and the company gets taxed as though it's a German company.

I believe the same sort of principal applies in most jurisdictions.

Same for Spain.

You need a permanent office - that is, employees that generate revenue for the company in the US - for the Spanish government to consider whether you can pay taxes in the US or in Spain.

Note that this varies from country to country depending on the double taxation agreements between countries [1]

[1] http://www.agenciatributaria.es/AEAT.internet/en_gb/Inicio/L...

I agree with this 100%. As a SaaS business they are going to be spending a lot of time working out what state their buyers are in and what tax to add to the sale. For this reason we incorporated in the UK (We are London based) and charged no tax for our US customers. All we had to do was call the IRS and get an EIN to provide to our larger customers, which was a fairly painless and free process.

> and you end up having an accountant for your company abroad and one for yourself.

That makes sense. After all you have assets abroad now, parts in a company. The company’s revenue will be taxed in the U.S., but if you pay yourself dividends these can also be taxed at home. Even if you don’t pay yourself anything, I imagine in most countries you have to disclose that you have assets abroad. That makes your individual tax returns more complicated—that being said, if you feel up to it you could still do them yourself of course.

For company owners with remote teams unsure of where they will be all living in the future or who move around between countries, this stuff is the biggest irritation. The one time a world government might come in handy to have a global incorporation. Also some big companies do wacky things like Atlassian: incorporated in London, UK, listed on the NASDAQ in the USA, managed and run in Australia... only the accountants and lawyers can explain why.

A prepaid international debt card is a good option to fly under the radar while you are not making enough to justify hiring an account.

I'd advise to find a better accountant. What they are suggesting seems out of touch with reality and my personal experience.

What is your experience then?

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