Incorporation ideas for swiss freelancers

[moneymaster]

You could simply incorporate a UK company and ask a UK lawyer to help you with the bank account and PayPal account opening. It's cheaper than most other setups I think. So it will work for your needs at Google Play!

 

[haslan]

If you have the money go either with a UK or Ireland company and bank account so ask a attorney there to help you.. it costs some money but you will get something stable setup.

 

[wtf]

Hello,

I have the following problematic and I did not find threads that suit my current situation nor talking about a solution for Swiss residents in the forum.

I am Swiss resident and national and would like to form a corporation in an offshore country (other than Switzerland, so...).

With an associate, we sell our software worldwide through app stores and have our own small software company. As we intend to have a large sums of revenue with our last product, we were eager to find the right jurisdiction and legal form that will match our business requirements.

As our market is purely virtual, we do not have proper office and as we are currently kind of freelancers as the people that work for us, the location of the company does not really matter from a business development point of view. The only liability and tax purpose are in scope.

I intend to incorporate an holding company that will hold my software company and other subsidiaries, but firstly I will just make it as simple as possible and form my only software company. As I am working with Google's and Apple's administrations that allow only certain countries to own the Merchant Account status the company's jurisdiction should be in one of them.

Here is Google's supported merchant account list:
Supported locations for developer & merchant registration - Developer Console Help


I am particularly concerned with keeping my business private and separated from my personal fortune as to avoid such as debt/legal issues that could happened and make me lose everything.

I am posting this because I thought that maybe someone will have an idea on that.

Thank you in advance.

Where did you finally registered your Company? do you mind to share. I have a few friends actually that develop apps and doing some Money, nothing big but they are searching for a way to get their money to an tax friendly country!

 

[Starlights]

im interested about this to because i earn money on my apps and want open a offshore business but i feel if go with UK LLP then the bank is the biggest problem because i need a local uk citizen open the business bank account for me in his name and i think not many ready to doing that? If there is people ready open bank accounts in UK send me to that Agent and i will contact them and ask about it.

 

[Talyn]

Honestly I don't know nothing about the Scottish LP and it seems @FullDISK want to sell something where it is impossible to get any real tax advise unless you pay for it.

That said, for a Cyprus company you need to proof the management and control is in Cyprus, this can be done with nominees, so you will need a good local tax lawyer to help you once you need to report your tax. This is almost the same procedure as for any other jurisdiction as long as we speak about that you live in Switzerland! You will only be taxed from the profits that you take out of the company and transfer to your own personal account.

Most often if we don't speak hundred of thousands euros you don't need any complicated setup, but anyway I would make some sort of arrangement with a local tax lawyer as already mentioned.

As it's tax transparent (each shareholder are taxed based on their home tax rate, in their home country), a Scottish LP is generally use to split the revenue between official and taxed source in your country, and an offshore and also to use a DTT to avoid 30% withholding as Google is based in the USA for payments.

An example:
You sell a software via google, you can't use an offshore or Google will apply a 30% withholding rate and you'll have a crapload of money that you couldn't use to live.
You set up a Scottish LP with two shareholders: 1 company in your own country and 1 offshore (with nominees). You split the shares 30% home country 70% offshore.
If you earn 100k profits before tax and your corporate tax in your home country is 20%:

Home country taxes: 100k x 0,30 x 0,20 = 6k | net profit = 100k x 0,30 - 6k = 24k.
Offshore taxes: 100k x 0,7 x 0 = 0 | net profit = 100k x 0,70 = 70k

Total profit = 94k and you have an "official" revenue in your home country, you're not jobless without any known source of revenues...

But with this setup, I strongly advise to have an experienced CPA and tax lawyer, as sooner or later your own tax office will start to ask questions.

 

[Starlights]

I want to know what country is the best for setup a company when you sell apps?

Where did you finaly register you company? i in same situation like you are and very interested find the best country for start up a company for our situations about app stores

talyn always talking about some withholding rate what country is best for avoid that?

 

[DeMajor]

Use my Cyprus company for it. I have seen the insane threads about it and don't understand what the problem is. If you feel comfortable with UAE go for it, if you feel comfortable with St. Kitts... go for it if you feel comfortable with Scottish LP... go for it. I don't believe there is any entity better compared to the other.

What may differ is the fee you pay every year!

 

[Starlights]

Use my Cyprus company for it. I have seen the insane threads about it and don't understand what the problem is. If you feel comfortable with UAE go for it, if you feel comfortable with St. Kitts... go for it if you feel comfortable with Scottish LP... go for it. I don't believe there is any entity better compared to the other.

What may differ is the fee you pay every year!

That is just the thing we try find out here what is the cheapest solution and there is many things that are not same how easy to open bank and do you need travel to that country and many things that are not same i try find out the cheapest solution but there is so many pros and cons on all this countrys

if just a open a company then you can do it ever in the world not need bee cyprus or any of this countrys you talk about there is 100 countrys that you can open company in...but not me or he who open this post was look for that simple answer where to open a company

 

[haslan]

Good luck with your UAE company. Please post here how it is going and the final "real price" you paid for your setup! I wish you anyway all the best of luck for your business

 

[Starlights]

Me too interested what country this guy who started the topic did finaly pick? but it seems he is gone :/

 

[DeMajor]

The cheapest you may get is a Belize setup also it would be possible to get it opened in a dead mans name there! corruption is very high so it's possible to get documents from there also for cheap.