UK ltd or offshore ltd. ?

[student]

Let say that my main marketing would be on word to mouth, the market will be outside of UK and services will be about consulting. I am choosing for set up company between Uk Ltd or Belize or other offshore Ltd. Is any good reason why I would prefer choose UK Ltd and not some offshore Ltd?

So I can get Ltd for about 50 GBP (If I choose for registration some company which will do that). But than I need to pay taxes.
Or I can get offshore Ltd for about 500 GBP and I don't need to pay any taxes.

Pease tell me what do you think about that.

Thank you

[clairemackaness]

Its all about where you intend to live, rather than where you intend to do the majority of your business.

If your not living in the UK why pay UK taxes?

But if your living in the UK and using the NHS etc then pay your tax like a good business person.

Just my twopenneth!

[DarrenC]

You can be based in the UK but register the business as offshore. I know a few people who have done that recently.

I didn't think you could be a limited company though if you did were registered offshore?

Darren

[clairemackaness]

You can be based in the UK but register the business as offshore. I know a few people who have done that recently.

I didn't think you could be a limited company though if you did were registered offshore?

Darren

But Darren surely thats fraud?

If you live in the UK you should pay tax like the rest of us.

[Alpha]

As Claire said the most important thing is where you live.

if the company is registered in another country the company will pay tax based on that companies taxation laws.........so far so good.

But then eventually the individual will want to earn money from the company which in general there is only two main ways of extracting money...either dividends or salary.

Once you take either of these and you are classified as resident or ordinarily resident in the UK you will have to pay UK income tax on this income.


Of course on the business side if most of the companies buiness is in the UK you will probably find it difficult to get customers who will deal with you.

[student]

I know it is quite dependent where you live. I live in Slovenia. The reason why I prefer UK limited company formation is because the procedure is very easy and doesn't take so much money as in Slovenia (in Slovenia you pay for limited minimum about 1000 GBP). So I much prefer Ltd in UK or offshore.
I live modestly so I won't get from company a lot of money in "cash" but I am going to spend most money inside the company for education, books, workshops, plane tickets, ... so I won't need to pay a lot of taxes for profit and sallary.

But if in future I would like to extend business not only by word to mouth but also other ways. Do you think companies trust to off shore ltd? Because I don't see any other argument why not going to offshore.

2.why so little consulters choose offshore?

[clairemackaness]

Perhaps it would have helped us if you said you lived in Slovenia to begin with!

[student]

Yes, you are right.

But I prefer to give to UK government some money and save money and give that save to some non profit organisation in Slovenia. Or even better, to go in off shore and save all money and give that save to non profit organisation or charity.

[Ozzy]

On a personal level I would not deal with a non-UK company except for exceptional circumstances. For example, I have just purchased some billing software form a US company, but that is the first transaction with a non-UK company I have done in over 2 years.

So it will also depend on your market, sometimes registering a company in the country you intend to do business in can help.

[Jon123]

I dont know if anyone saw that thing on channel 2 on thursday night about tax etc. But they were talking about how to avoid it and it was reported that the greens saved 280 million by dodging tax legally. Mrs green registered her residency in monaco and recieved a huge salary in dividends and therefore had to pay no income tax as thats the tax law in monaco. So the rich to get richer.

Another way people were avoiding tax was to register the company of shore and pay the tax rules according to there tax laws.

Jon