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Note, I am not an accountant, but these are my experiences running a business in the U.S. If you are a passthrough entity like a sole-propietorship, partnershi
by kxyvr 10y ago
Note, I am not an accountant, but these are my experiences running a business in the U.S.
If you are a passthrough entity like a sole-propietorship, partnership, or S-corp, probably not. Note, this doesn't matter if you're an LLC or not because the IRS doesn't care. Basically, passthrough entities calculate all business income minus deductible expenses as personal income. Therefore, the amount is subject to federal and state income tax as well as payroll tax (FICA). Certainly, income tax is tiered and FICA caps out at $118,500, but let's assume that you're pulling in $100,000. This mostly puts you in the 25% tax bracket. We'll assume that there's also 5% of state income tax. For FICA, since you're both the employee and the employer, you pay 15.3%. All together, that means you're losing about 45% to tax off the bat. Note, this taxes apply regardless of where you register your company unless you live out of the country for 330 days a year or can claim foreign residency. Then, it gets complicated because a certain amount of income is tax free, but not over a certain amount. Anyway, if you decide to live in the U.S., that 45% or so of tax from above applies regardless of where the company is registered. The reason people register their company outside the state where they do their business, other than liability and tort concerns, is because they're trying to avoid sales or gross receipts tax. However, everyone just bills that amount to their customers anyway, so it's really a wash.
If you really want to know the implications where you live, just hire an honest accountant for an hour and ask. That's what I did. It's worth the money.
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Look, if you really want to save money on taxes, just make more money. That sounds silly, but it's true. Register as an S-corp. Your first $118,500 are brutal because you're paying an extra 15.3%, but after that FICA goes to 0%. Now, the top tax rate in the U.S. is 39.6%, but dividends are how people cheat that rate. Basically, an S-corp is required to pay the people who work in the company the prevailing wage for that position. However, money above that amount can be distributed to the shareholders as dividends. These are taxed at 15%. Note, you can't just underpay yourself and then claim everything as a dividend. That's illegal and you will get caught eventually. That said, the overall tax rate for someone who's running an S-corp and making $300k is almost certainly lower than someone making $100k. For example, if you can convince the IRS that the prevailing wage for your position is $120k, and you made $300k, then the first $120k gets taxed at 45% or so (see above) and the last $180k gets paid out in dividends and taxed at 15%. That's how you get your tax rate down. Note, at this point, really, just hire an honest accountant who can do the correct calculations and paperwork.
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Note, I talked about being an S-corp above. However, even if you register your company out of the country, it doesn't matter. Americans must file their taxes every year regardless of where they live. If you are a bonified foreign resident, then the first $100,800 is tax exempt, but we still have to file this number. We also have to file what bank accounts have foreign assets over $10k at any time during the year. So, basically, when you file your taxes, the IRS doesn't care where your company is registered at all. You're going to pay your income tax and FICA, which is going to be in the 40% range if not more. Quite simply, if you're self employed, you're paying 15.3% in FICA. If you try to cheat this and your employer didn't pay the other half, the IRS will still want its money and you'll get caught. Even if you setup a foreign bank account with a foreign business, if a company pays you more that $600, they're probably going to file a 1099 in order to deduct that expense from their taxes, which means that the IRS knows about your income. Further, if you try to wire the money into the U.S. from your foreign bank, that goes through a check as well. Really, the IRS wants to get paid and they will one way or another.
It's not that illegal action can't hide money. Certainly, it can. However, it's difficult to hide money or reduce tax liability unless you have a lot of money to pay someone with a lot of know how to do it for you. At that point, just be happy that you're rich.
- zerr 10y agoWow 45%? What is this, the socialist state without any benefits of it? In Germany you pay less taxes (30%-42%) but you get free healthcare, education, 1 year maternity and paternity leave and tons of other similar benefits...
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- kxyvr 10y agoIt's actually worse. The numbers above do not include the cost of healthcare nor retirement past what FICA pays for in social security. Say we're working with the magical $100k number above. In my state, my healthcare premiums were $500/month, which are not tax deductible. That means, I lose another $6k in premiums, or 6% of the $100k. My out of pocket max was $3300. I never want to be in a position to not go to the doctor because of money, so I always budget for it. Though, the payments for qualified medical expenses in that $3300 are tax deductible. So, let's pretend that 3.3% is really 2% after tax savings. That means that I spend 8% of $100k income on healthcare. If I add that to the 45%, then we're at about 53% of the money gone. Again, the number is slightly lower because of graduated tax brackets, but, candidly, it's not that much lower. I lived a few years in Norway and have my company registered out there as well. I paid less in taxes there and got more in services. Other than culture, it's literally easier to start and run a company is many socialist countries. Simply, the taxes are lower; the services are higher; and the risk is lower because there's a safety net to fall back onto. That said, cultural does count for a lot and American culture is supportive of taking a risk as a small business. The U.S. is also the home to some of the world's largest companies, so opportunities to make contacts and contracts here can be higher.
- mahyarm 10y agoEmployment law also makes it harder to hire employees. Every employee hire in places like Germany and such are huge risks to small corps, since it's very hard to fire bad employees who are net negatives, and they know it and abuse it. That is ironically probably the biggest barrier to starting a corp in Europe for me. Health care insurance costs although should be tax deductible, and there are things like FSAs and HSAs that help make health costs even more tax deductible. Are you talking about the costs for paying other things in health care costs, like the $XXs per doctor visit and so on? ----- America is ironically a high tax nation, but these things usually reduce tax and COL: 1. The mortgage interest tax deduction. That is easily a +$20k/yr tax deduction right there. There are other small tax deductions that can remove a few thousands here and there. 2. States like Washington or Nevada that have no state income tax. 3. Almost everything is significantly cheaper to buy in the USA 4. Sales tax / VAT is %0-%10 vs the common ~%20 that is common in the EU. Because the US is a mismanged mess governmentally, buying something online from another state is a common sales tax dodge. 5. Pay is significantly higher in the USA for software professionals. I once read it doesn't matter how much you spend, but really how much you make and that can make up for the tax rates.