I am often asked how I as an Irish citizen living in Italy can have a US corporation. So this very short post will explain it’s really not a big deal and quite simple.
Disclaimer: My advice is from my personal experience and you should consult a CPA or lawyer for guidance.
If you are a US citizen you can file some paper work with your state and then go to IRS.gov and request an EIN# (tax ID). Then depending on your state’s regulations, you will likely need a Sales Tax ID too. You get that from your state office.
As a foreigner we too can file similar papers and do the work ourselves and request an EIN number from the IRS website. However, if like me, you don’t wat to figure all that out you can hire an agency to do it all for you.
To set up a Limited Liability Company and get an EIN an agency can file the paperwork for you and send the documents to you when they’re done. It can take a few weeks to complete and it can cost you anywhere between $400 and $1,000 depending on what ir required and the agency you use.
There are 100s of agencies. Just google “create a US company” and you will see companies like LegalZoom, MyUSACompany.com, Valis International. The list is long and the price varies.
The good thing about being a foreigner is we get to choose the US state we want to register in. Some states like Delaware and Wyoming has tax benefits. For example, Delaware doesn’t collect sales tax, instead it requires a small annual fee. Something like $125 per year. So you don’t have to collect sales tax from your customers which is a good sellng point in your favor.
Although the confusion around sales tax is getting more complicated by the day as some states will still request it from you under certain scenarios based on sales volume. I won’t go into the details here because by the time I hit publish the situation will have evolved. The states are still trying to figure it out.
Since my experience is setting up a US company as a foreigner living abroad I can only speak to my experiences. One more thing I needed to do was obtain a physical address in the US. When you open a US bank account they require a US address where they can send you post. After 9/11 they bank controls became more stringent to avoid fake companies holding money with no trace to the owners. So you need a physical address.
This is also not a big deal. Any agency that will set up your company, like those mentioned above, usually offer a service where they provide their address for a small yearly fee. I registered in Delaware and my physical address is the address of my agencies office. I pay $600 a year in ‘rent’ to occupy a small folder on their shelf. Then when I get my business mail delivered to the office, they will forward my post by mail to my home in Italy.
Some services even offer to open and scan your post so you can get it by email.
So as you can see, you can set up a US company with a few hundred dollars, or you can go online and figure out how to file yourself and pay much less. Just the filing fees.
Once you have a company you can legally work with suppliers and sell their products.
