That was also our original idea but it turns out to not be that simple: 1) Whether you are an individual or a company, you still need permission from the South

That was also our original idea but it turns out to not be that simple: 1) Whether you are an individual or a company, you still need permission from the South African Reserve bank to "just happen to own" a US company. 2) Whether the offshore company is owned by an individual or another .za company, you are still liable for tax to both the .za government and the offshore country. If you don't want to be double-taxed you need to set up a structure that allows for transfer-pricing and that conforms with the international tax treaties in effect between the two countries. tl;dr whether you or your company owns the offshore entity makes no difference to your legal & tax obligations. :-P edit: word salad