Its spot on. I implemented the "financial barrier". Happy to do business but I get paid in full, upfront. If not, all good. I wont be the one working with you 🙂 I've learned my lessons.
Anonymous (or with nominee) company in Europe
- Thread starter eklia
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Just so we don't go off-topic, I want to add that it's true, as mentioned here already. Once you've found a destination and done some research, make an appointment with maybe 2-3 different service providers and arrange a personal meeting. It's the only right thing to do.
You can look into silent partnerships.
This is a legit way to do business anonymously, while you have someone acting as a front for your business.
A good read is the Wikipedia:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stille_Gesellschaft
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Société_en_participation
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associazione_in_partecipazione
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociedade_em_conta_de_participação
The English one is unfortunately not very good. Use translate if you needed.
You basically invest in a company, but it is not visible anywhere. You can have some guy owning the company, while you are in a silent partnership and get all the profits. You then need to pay taxes on the profits. Withholding taxes apply, if there are any.
A minimum 2 partners is required.
It looks as if it doesn't exist.
Basically it looks like there is just a regular company in whatever jurisdiction (trader) doing business as usual.
In the background, there is a silent partnership contract, on the basis of which the silent partner undertakes to make a specific contribution to the management of the enterprise or a part thereof, and the trader undertakes to pay the silent partner a share of the profits corresponding to the silent partner's contribution.
Now, let's imagine the trader is actually operating more like "a front" (like a payment processor) and pays out almost everything to the silent partner.
This is a perfect structure to combine higher tax jurisdictions with less reputable offshore jurisdictions.
Investment is not always required. Partners could also contribute through work.
Typically not, atypically yes. Check the link I sent earlier:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stille_Gesellschaft
Normally these solutions do require disclosing the silent partners details to the entities bank(s). In some countries the silent partner structures are not recommended anymore and being phased out. Get solid advice in the country where you consider such a solution.
Yes, but it depends on the jurisdiction of the trading company. Estonia doesn't have WHT for instance. Estonia is a great choice for a trading company (with silent partnership) as it would generally pay tax only on dividend distributions while undistributed profits remain tax free. Non Estonian resident silent partner would most often not pay any tax in Estonia.
Estonian regulations are based on the German commercial code.
This is indeed especially important if partnership profit distribution transactions are being AML-d.
Making a transaction to an offshore jurisdiction can immediately put the corporate account in a higher risk category (in the eyes of AML monkeys).
Sometimes using an intermediary EMI account can be a solution, or even using crypto.
Its possible that a silent partnership is managed jointly together with the silent partner.
Could be.
I don't really understand what you are saying here.
There is a regular partnership where partners are visible to the public. With silent partnership, the silent partner could represent the trader with a POA while technically he is himself a main beneficiary while on the surface it would look that he is only an authorized representative.
It defeats the purpose of the setup when a silent partner accepts a position in the company. You are then better of with a different type of entity.
That is totally clear. I think it was a reply to this question:
That's why I commented that there is the atypical silent partnership where the partner is director etc. You can basically do anything between a completely silent partner and a full regular partnership.
It's one of those typical setups where no one owns more than 25% of the company shares. That way, ownership doesn't have to be disclosed officially, but it's still known to the authorities in the relevant country.
This little trick has been around for many years.
This little trick has been around for many years.
There are some distinct differences though. What you refer to can be done with any setup. What TS tries to find out, is what daniels27 highlighted.
Your option only goes to 25% ownership where a silent partner structure (in so far it is still allowed) could own 99% without having their details disclosed. Keep in mind that a bank will by definition nowadays know all the details.
I normally fire all silent partners before opening the bank accounts and then get them back in the backstage. Of course it would have to be reported to the banks, but I am like Warren Buffet and claim to have been on the toilet when they got back.
As with Jackass, try at your own risk!
You just don't send it? What's the question? It is not like you have monkeys in your company sending it, do you?
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