Why you might not want to incorporate in the USA

I run a france-based company specialized in online advertising and I wanted to expand our activities to the US, who does not? Obviously France is way worst than Denmark and the US for business, tax and work laws, so I can't really relate for the tax part.

I relate mostly for the visa stuff. What I am getting from the OP post, Nitai was doing L1-A. I have been doing L1-A too. (I recognized the list of documents scanned the OP has posted! :) ) Same hassle, same huge amount of documents needed, we didn't give up though after the first request for evidences but the requirements are kind of high so we finally didn't get it.

US now sucks for immigration and it seems to worsen. BUT, Europe seems harder too than before for immigration. It seems a tendency that in the world with Internet, cheap transportation and desire for better file, people immigrate more and countries make stronger bureaucratic walls.

That's sad. :'(

Second is where your customers are. This is both a tax question (you want to pay less tax) and a business question (you want to collect more money more easily).

If you need Stripe or its equivalent, you dance to the tune they play. Organize in the USA and bend to their will.

If your customers are in the USA you have to look at whether you have "U.S. source income" -- a defined technical jargon-y concept. If so, it doesn't matter where or what you (or your company) happen to be. The U.S. wants tax.

You have to look at brain damage, complexity, and cost. Don't focus so much on financial cost when thinking about your business structure. Think about opportunity cost. An hour spent thinking about this is an hour you did not spend writing books or marketing them.

Until the stakes are high -- several million a year of revenue -- don't get too complicated. Yeah Apple 'n Google do fun stuff. But they have billions of dollars and you (and I) don't. :-)

Keep it simple. Don't optimize for tax too early. You'll make more in building your business fast than you will spending the same amount of time and thinking on tax strategies.

As a U.S. expat, I haven't noticed this. The forms aren't as easy as the Danish forms (which are fully automatic and done for you), but not too complex in my situation of just having a regular salaried job. I paid a CPA $200 or something to do it the first time, because I wasn't sure I would do it correctly myself. But the result was pretty readable and basically what I had thought I was supposed to do. Unnecessarily many pages, but simple enough ones.

And due to the foreign-tax credit there's no double taxation. I compute my U.S. tax obligation, subtract Danish taxes paid, and the result is always $0, since U.S. taxes are comparatively low.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3944339

http://www.guidemesingapore.com/incorporation/introduction/s...

AFAIK, you can always change to another country. However, I can't see the US taking it very lightly that you've denounced your citizenship. In other words, I would assume they would try to make your life a living hell if you wanted anything to do again in the US. (Have no idea, just assuming based on preconceptions about the way the US already treats it's citizens who live outside of it already) Derek seems pretty open, might be worth trying to reach out to him.

Also, if you don't plan on moving out of the country, which the majority of Americans (and probably citizens of most countries) don't.