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Perhaps your biggest concern is 'Reputation Risk' - will clients not want to work with you, because the jurisdiction of your corporation looks strange or suspic

Perhaps your biggest concern is 'Reputation Risk' - will clients not want to work with you, because the jurisdiction of your corporation looks strange or suspicious. That could mean terrorism or tax evasion. One option I have researched for me, but IANAL etc and have not yet taken professional advice and executed this plan so there may be flaws I'm missing: 1) Establish a company in Hong Kong. This may require a trip, and several thousand dollars. But HK has minimal reputation risk, good international banking, and experience with remote owners. 2) Establish tax residency in Panama or similar. Again, experience with expats, and apparently a beautiful country. It sounds like you're not looking to change Residency, just establish a Company. In that case, I would suggest researching Hong Kong. Be sure to research banking as well as tax and corporations law (google Streber for a good website), as some countries may make it easy to incorporate but difficult to bank. Good luck!

ukoki 11y ago
As an added data point, 1) has worked for me so far. Early last year I left the UK and set up a company in HK. I had to go to HK to set up a company bank account, but incorporation could be done remotely. As I was already in SE Asia, total cost was under $1000 USD. Since then I've been travelling (up to 2 months per country) while consulting remotely. Just in case you're a Brit: The UK government considers you automatically non-resident for tax purposes if you spend fewer than 16 days in the UK in a given tax year, so you may not be liable for UK income tax (likely still liable for CGT though). IANATL
himlion 11y ago
What turned me off from Hong Kong so far is the mandatory yearly audit for your limited which will cost $5000++ (USD, not HKD).
- JacobAldridge 11y ago
  While I haven't explored specific costs, I agree it's definitely a situation where the benefits have to outweigh the costs. For the OP, there's no point doing this if it's not going to bring in more work; for others, it may be the territorial-nature of the HK tax system that makes it worthwhile - I'd gladly pay a $5Kpa auditing fee if it saved me $20,000 in tax compared to another jurisdiction. (That's a key reason why I haven't pulled the trigger yet - my personal tax residency is such that my HK entity would be a Controlled Foreign Corporation, and those tax benefits wouldn't apply.)

ukoki 11y ago

As an added data point, 1) has worked for me so far. Early last year I left the UK and set up a company in HK. I had to go to HK to set up a company bank account, but incorporation could be done remotely. As I was already in SE Asia, total cost was under $1000 USD. Since then I've been travelling (up to 2 months per country) while consulting remotely. Just in case you're a Brit: The UK government considers you automatically non-resident for tax purposes if you spend fewer than 16 days in the UK in a given tax year, so you may not be liable for UK income tax (likely still liable for CGT though). IANATL

himlion 11y ago

What turned me off from Hong Kong so far is the mandatory yearly audit for your limited which will cost $5000++ (USD, not HKD).

JacobAldridge 11y ago
While I haven't explored specific costs, I agree it's definitely a situation where the benefits have to outweigh the costs. For the OP, there's no point doing this if it's not going to bring in more work; for others, it may be the territorial-nature of the HK tax system that makes it worthwhile - I'd gladly pay a $5Kpa auditing fee if it saved me $20,000 in tax compared to another jurisdiction. (That's a key reason why I haven't pulled the trigger yet - my personal tax residency is such that my HK entity would be a Controlled Foreign Corporation, and those tax benefits wouldn't apply.)