How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA? • Hacker News Board

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#21

Post by bosch » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 7:31 AM UTC

Negitivefrags wrote: post #16

andycroll wrote: post #2

I'm not super clear on the tax implications of this and they aren't mentioned... any insights?

If you only have a US company, then it can pay salary to workers in other countries and have those workers pay local tax. I think that your country has to have a Double Tax Agreement for that to work. The US company pays US corporate tax. If you want the money to be funnelled to a company in your local country then you need a set up a Transfer Pricing Agreement. This basically means that your local company charges th…

Do you have Twitter/E-mail? I have a few questions you might be able to answer.

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#22

Post by endgame12 » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 8:18 AM UTC

This is useless. Incorporation is not really the problem. Being outside the US is the problem. Compliance issues in both countries will cost a lot more than the incorporation. They are either ignorant of the issues and not compliant or paying a lot for an expert on international tax.

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#23

Post by sbarlster » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 8:55 AM UTC

What a lovely story. Not specifically the credit card stuff but the hackernews inspired startup story... http://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a-simple-c...

I find the 'just make the core features work' part interesting. Make my core business processes work with no glitches at a 'reasonable' cost.

I would be interested in a freshdesk tech stack blog entry?

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#24

Post by davidw » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 8:57 AM UTC

inopinatus wrote: post #18

This is a lot of effort to go to just gain the ability to handling recurring payments in USD[1]. I considered a similar path, since here in Australia we are very similarly constrained[2]. However I was not willing to accept the risk and complexity of incorporating in an unfamiliar legal/financial jurisdiction and I really don't feel the OP has made me any more comfortable although they seem flush about it. Since I ha…

> However I was not willing to accept the risk and complexity of incorporating in an unfamiliar legal/financial jurisdiction and I really don't feel the OP has made me any more comfortable although they seem flush about it.

It could be (but I don't know) that while Australia is not too far from the US in terms of the legal/financial stuff, India is not so great, so it's worth going to the US in any event. For instance, here in Italy, I don't think that highly of the legal system, so there is a bit more incentive for some people to take the risk and go abroad like this. Of course, everyone needs to evaluate it according to their own situation.

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#25

Post by skyhook_mockups » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 9:02 AM UTC

inopinatus wrote: post #18

This is a lot of effort to go to just gain the ability to handling recurring payments in USD[1]. I considered a similar path, since here in Australia we are very similarly constrained[2]. However I was not willing to accept the risk and complexity of incorporating in an unfamiliar legal/financial jurisdiction and I really don't feel the OP has made me any more comfortable although they seem flush about it. Since I ha…

I'm also from Australia and have recently gone through the process of getting a merchant account (from St.George bank).

From stories I heard in the past, I was expecting a horrible experience (banks not being able to grok the concept of digital goods etc). Turns out that either the stories were a furphy or banks have gotten a lot better.

Here's the process I went through.

1. Application

2. Set up a single page website to give a brief overview of product

3. Include TOS and returns policy (adapted from wordpress.com)

4. Wait 7 days for approval

Thats it. One week to get a merchant account with no prior business history. The rates are fairly standard:

1.4%/trans, $33 monthly, $44 anual fee, $33 chargeback fee

I think off the top of my head those rates beat those provided by paypal, stripe, etc. although I'm happy to be corrected if anyone has up-to-date info about them

I'll also be paying $300/yr for gateway fees since I have no desire to handle CC details directly.

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#26

Post by robryan » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 9:49 AM UTC

skyhook_mockups wrote: post #25

inopinatus wrote: post #18

This is a lot of effort to go to just gain the ability to handling recurring payments in USD[1]. I considered a similar path, since here in Australia we are very similarly constrained[2]. However I was not willing to accept the risk and complexity of incorporating in an unfamiliar legal/financial jurisdiction and I really don't feel the OP has made me any more comfortable although they seem flush about it. Since I ha…

I'm also from Australia and have recently gone through the process of getting a merchant account (from St.George bank). From stories I heard in the past, I was expecting a horrible experience (banks not being able to grok the concept of digital goods etc). Turns out that either the stories were a furphy or banks have gotten a lot better. Here's the process I went through. 1. Application 2. Set up a single page websit…

St George is excellent, the NAB didn't want to know us but had no problems with St George in the 2 years we have used them.

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#27

Post by robryan » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 9:52 AM UTC

inopinatus wrote: post #18

This is a lot of effort to go to just gain the ability to handling recurring payments in USD[1]. I considered a similar path, since here in Australia we are very similarly constrained[2]. However I was not willing to accept the risk and complexity of incorporating in an unfamiliar legal/financial jurisdiction and I really don't feel the OP has made me any more comfortable although they seem flush about it. Since I ha…

As long as you can get away without multi currency transactions. We had a founder in the US so made it easier to incorporate there and get a multi currency merchant account. Only issue is the fees, which are driving us to incorporate in the UK to get a decent GBP rate.

Stripe/ Pin are great but still don't solve multi currency, Pin is offering USD and AUD, haven't seen any rates from them yet though.

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#28

Post by frontier » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 10:08 AM UTC

skyhook_mockups wrote: post #25

inopinatus wrote: post #18

This is a lot of effort to go to just gain the ability to handling recurring payments in USD[1]. I considered a similar path, since here in Australia we are very similarly constrained[2]. However I was not willing to accept the risk and complexity of incorporating in an unfamiliar legal/financial jurisdiction and I really don't feel the OP has made me any more comfortable although they seem flush about it. Since I ha…

I'm also from Australia and have recently gone through the process of getting a merchant account (from St.George bank). From stories I heard in the past, I was expecting a horrible experience (banks not being able to grok the concept of digital goods etc). Turns out that either the stories were a furphy or banks have gotten a lot better. Here's the process I went through. 1. Application 2. Set up a single page websit…

St George really is an exception! I've had all sorts of problems in the past with other banks. In recent times Bankwest has been great too, but St George wins for API's available if you need to do more than just accept payments on the web.

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#29

Post by skyhook_mockups » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 10:53 AM UTC

robryan wrote: post #27

inopinatus wrote: post #18

This is a lot of effort to go to just gain the ability to handling recurring payments in USD[1]. I considered a similar path, since here in Australia we are very similarly constrained[2]. However I was not willing to accept the risk and complexity of incorporating in an unfamiliar legal/financial jurisdiction and I really don't feel the OP has made me any more comfortable although they seem flush about it. Since I ha…

As long as you can get away without multi currency transactions. We had a founder in the US so made it easier to incorporate there and get a multi currency merchant account. Only issue is the fees, which are driving us to incorporate in the UK to get a decent GBP rate. Stripe/ Pin are great but still don't solve multi currency, Pin is offering USD and AUD, haven't seen any rates from them yet though.

Are multi-currency payments an issue when selling abroad? I'm totally new to receiving online payments and am genuinely curious about the issues surrounding accepting only a single currency.

As an Australian consumer I'm used to paying in USD and simply seeing a slightly different amount show up on my transaction history (AUD being generally at parity with USD)

Is having multi-currency support important? Does it impact sales? Is using something like money.js to give a close estimate of actual cost good enough?

Re: How to incorporate a US Corporation from outside the USA?

#30

Post by SeanLuke » Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 12:11 PM UTC

girishm wrote: post #15

SeanLuke wrote: post #12

It seems he doesn't really understand why one typically incorporates in Delaware.

Hi Sean - When you are looking to incorporate from abroad, Delaware seemed the most obvious and had a good ecosystem around it. You can pay the Franchise tax online and pretty much get most of what you want from the State of Delaware online. Once you are successful and have money we can always change things but as a startup getting up and running quickly was essential and Delaware incorporation was a breeze.

What's missing from your article, and from your response here, is why companies incorporate in Delaware as opposed to, say, Iowa. That reason is: since the turn of the century, Delaware has adopted a variety of tax and corporate laws which are highly, almost absurdly, corporation-friendly. As a result, Delaware has a well-deserved reputation for being a corporate haven.