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Is there really a market for this? Why would anyone outside the US want to open a US company when you can just as easily open a company and bank account in a ta
by amgin3 11y ago
Is there really a market for this? Why would anyone outside the US want to open a US company when you can just as easily open a company and bank account in a tax-free country with little/no oversight?
- jamiethompson 11y agoThat's what I was thinking. Why would I want to do this. What would be the benefit. Why would I pay tax to the US government?
- hizanberg 11y agoWhich country lets you easily open a bank account and accept Stripe Payments with little/no oversight?
- sumedh 11y agoAustralia
- aCameronhuff 11y agoCanada
- amgin3 11y agoBelize, Nevis, British Virgin Islands are all places you can incorporate for little cost and no taxes, there are many online services that will set it up for you just like Stripe is doing in the US. With a corp in one of these countries, you can then open a bank account in Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. where there is no oversight on your account so you are free to do what you want.
- prodmerc 11y agoBecause then you can do business in the US (largest English speaking client base) without any trouble? And accepting debit cards (especially US cards) is still quite hard in most of the world afaik, aside from the UK, so this is a godsend to any entrepreneurs who want a real chance at success. This was actually the dream just half a decade ago, to incorporate in the US without having to actually get a visa and go there and easily conduct business with anyone in the world... Nowadays, it's not as pressing, but still a great service imo...
- kintamanimatt 11y agoAccepting cards from most locations isn't actually difficult any longer with Stripe, Braintree, Paymill, and others. US cards aren't special in terms of being able to accept them; they're just regular Visa/MC/Amex/Discover/whatever cards. The neglected payment methods are the country specific ones. Some major countries have very low credit-card penetration, for example in the Netherlands. The common internet payment method there is iDEAL which is a kind of two factor authenticated bank transfer. Even debit cards in the Netherlands have two distinguishing features: there isn't a PAN number on the card which makes it impossible[0] to use online in the way you'd use an embossed Visa/MasterCard, and the Dutch banks all issue their debit cards under the Maestro and V-Pay schemes. [0] Not really, but very few people know what their debit card's PAN number is. It's possible to calculate the hidden PAN number as it's usually just a regular Maestro card, or to just scan it off the card using NFC and an appropriate app.
- gabhubert 11y ago(I work for Stripe) Hey! Yes we're definitely aware of the need to take into account local payment landscapes that can be quite specific (you rightly mentioned iDEAL in the Netherlands, there's also EPS in Austria, Bancontact/MrCash in Belgium, to name a few others in Europe...). We're working on this and I'd be happy to connect to learn more about your needs. My email is just gabriel at, feel free to reach out!
- thu 11y agoI think participating to a YC batch requires to be incorporated in the US.
- Artemis2 11y agoThey will make you incorporate your business in the US just after you are accepted.
- amit_m 11y agoBecause it is difficult to do business in the US without a US subsidiary and bank account. You can't even run a Kickstarter campaign as a foreigner.
- tim333 11y agoIf you open an LLC as a foreigner there is basically no US tax and little oversight. And setting up a company and bank account in a tax haven tends to be pretty expensive. (Price list here - http://www.offshoreformations247.com/offshore-jurisdictions/ http://www.offshoreformations247.com/offshore-jurisdictions/ - Delaware is the cheapest)