5 ms·
You're right I got ahead of myself a bit there. Yes, you need to pay personal income tax in your tax resident country but that's much easier than formalized bo
by deno 23d ago
You're right I got ahead of myself a bit there.
Yes, you need to pay personal income tax in your tax resident country but that's much easier than formalized bookkeeping and corporate income tax (assuming your LLC is DE which is the default). Also for other taxes like VAT you have to register for and pay those regardless of where your company is registered.
US LLC has no formal bookkeeping requirements but you still need to report distributions and contributions to IRS annually (via fax or certified letter), submit annual statements to your state (but those are just hey I'm still alive not financial statements, they are even free in some states like Montana) and maintain registered agent but that's like $50/year. It's crazy just how easy it is.
The digital part is just about what your business can realistically do without it having local or at least EU based presence in some form.
For once you'll have issues with dealing with local businesses and EU marketplaces rather than government.
For example eBay account is basically impossible without having US address and resident VPN. And you'll constantly worry about getting banned, which is already a worry even if you are legitimate local based business since they too big to have to care about customer support like most big corps.
If you're just selling software or something like that it's much easier. The more you go into physical goods or services realm the more hurdles you will have. You can't hire people for example without having a branch or similar. Same for real estate or some equipment like cars.
Also for some services every local business you invoice will potentially have tax withholding to deal with. This is in particular a problem in Poland which has the strictest tax withholding regulations.
- simgt 22d agoI wasn't talking about income tax, this one is almost easy. The country you reside in can claim corporate taxes on your foreign business. You end up having to deal with bureaucracy in both places... Otherwise all freelancers would have their company in Estonia (for easiness) or the member state that has a lowest corporate tax, while living in the one that has the best social security.
- deno 22d agoYes that was my criticism exactly, but US LLC by default has no corporate tax (unless you opt-in for some reason) while still having limited liability. It's why it's so unique. There's no other country in the world that has anything like that. People don't realize how insanely business friendly US is compared to rest of the world.
- simgt 22d ago> US LLC by default has no corporate tax (unless you opt-in for some reason) while still having limited liability. It's why it's so unique. > There's no other country in the world that has anything like that. That's exactly what an EURL is in France. I'm pretty sure every country has a similar legal status.
- deno 22d agoThat’s cool I didn’t know about EURL. I have researched it before AI and must have missed it or dismissed because of the French language, so my mistake. But it’s still an exception: https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6a8d8edbe3108191988c5dc978d62d43 https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6a8d8edbe3108191988c5dc978d62d43 Note you still have formal bookkeeping requirements for EURL unlike US LLC.