E-commerce From Thailand

[rollingthunder]

This concerns operating an E-commerce site from Thailand. Assuming one registers a company in the UK as a limited company, and operating an Ecommerce business from Thailand. Is this legal? ie, not paying taxes in Thailand, although (due to the nature of services) advertising on the site that he is residing in Thailand? What are the risks? I presume one can not give a contact address in Thailand? but only in the UK.

Thank you in advance.

[Amethyst]

Hi

if you use the search engine in here you could find alot of usefull answer

search on online sales or e commerce...

Ive ask this Question before and there is a lot of so good luck...

Well there is no problem doing e commerce bussiness here without a Company....Im doing it too

[sting01]

there is no problem until one point.

Fact is you will more or less go vs some laws , local and/or international.

1) the visa problem, if your business is part time, then it can be not a problem, but what if it;s a full time? Don't think about the anonymous nature of the net, you are not anonymous to your ISP, nor to the authorities.

2) Even if the location of your firm is in UK, if you provide the work from here, it will considered as a second office "de facto". It's motsly depend of the nature of your business and the size.

3) If you selle non materials stuffs (programms for exemple) then it will be okie (2 years of experience with that) , but if you sell the nice rayban bought in Patpong, then after a while you will be invited to register in your local tax office.

4) The fact to be in LOS will not allow you (for exemple) to check an english paypal account, fact your IP wil be not from UK, so paypal will think it's a hack, and will froze your account to avoid problem.That is not only tyrue for paypal, but some other payment gateway seems react same same.

5) It's usually accepted, due the international nature of the net, every offense made by or from the net is subject to the local law of your IP address. It mean if you are in thailand, use internet in thailand, all your business (Even if the firm is registred in UK) will be considered as Thai based.

[LivinLOS]

disclaimer.. I am not a Lawyer (thank god )

there is no problem until one point.

Fact is you will more or less go vs some laws , local and/or international.

1) the visa problem, if your business is part time, then it can be not a problem, but what if it;s a full time? Don't think about the anonymous nature of the net, you are not anonymous to your ISP, nor to the authorities.

2) Even if the location of your firm is in UK, if you provide the work from here, it will considered as a second office "de facto". It's motsly depend of the nature of your business and the size.

It has been said many time (thaiimmigration.com indo-siam etc) that working online doing business not supplying Thais is legal.. Same as checking your email while on vacation or managing your investments and stocks.. This seems to have been backed up by official statements..

The danger it would seem is selling products to Thais, then you may have a thai to thai transaction and that would be considered working in Thailand.

3) If you selle non materials stuffs (programms for exemple) then it will be okie (2 years of experience with that) , but if you sell the nice rayban bought in Patpong, then after a while you will be invited to register in your local tax office.

Export seems ok without work permit.. Its Thai to Thai sales thaty appear to carry risk as I understand it..

4) The fact to be in LOS will not allow you (for exemple) to check an english paypal account, fact your IP wil be not from UK, so paypal will think it's a hack, and will froze your account to avoid problem.That is not only tyrue for paypal, but some other payment gateway seems react same same.

True years ago (though you could simply have PayPal remove the international IP block) but not true any more.. I have a UK PayPal account I can manage from Thailand without any problems... Other payment systems and processors are much more flexible..

5) It's usually accepted, due the international nature of the net, every offense made by or from the net is subject to the local law of your IP address. It mean if you are in thailand, use internet in thailand, all your business  (Even if the firm is registred in UK) will be considered as Thai based.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Try not breaking any laws.. Would help

[aqua4]

A loaded question, with not enough information.

Assuming one registers a company in the UK as a limited company, and operating an Ecommerce business from Thailand. Is this legal? ie, not paying taxes in Thailand.

That would depend, I am assuming that the UK and Thailand have a Double Taxation Agreement. This being, if you pay tax to the one, you dont need to pay to the other.

What are the risks? I presume one can not give a contact address in Thailand? but only in the UK.

Depends on what you are selling. If it is tangable goods (Radios etc) that would be important to tell people that it is comming from Thailand as it is going to get duties slapped on it when it enters the UK. Services would make no differance.

[rollingthunder]

Am planning a translation and interpretation business. Once you offer interpretation services, it could be assumed that you are operating locally, by definition. Regarding taxes, I am not aware of a tax agreeement between UK and Thailand. Would it be OK to post a Thai address, fax and phone number on my Internet site? I need these to boost credibility, etc. But this would in effect amount to having an office in Thailand... Can anyone help?!?

Cheers

[sting01]

IF I was you, it's what I will do :

take contact with serious people who can and are willing to help.

I personnaly advice you one : Indo Siam a.k.a Steve . The guy is here since years, do this business since years, and he is serious.

You can also I suppose have accurate information by the main sponsort of the site.

I work online since years (almost 3 now), I know only one thing for sure, reallity is different of what you can read. Laws are made (here and abroad) to avoid if possible those situations. What any people can say , even hight ranked governemental officers, are only saying.

I know by experience when your business reach one point, then they remenber you exist. They include all kind of money suckers you can imagine. The best I found was to create a partnership limited, legal for legal, at least I am protected against silly accusation as working without work permit ... That also can happend , even if your firm is in UK, and do only work online. Key word is WORK, mean generating your main income, not check mail, or chat with yahoo.

So better to contact professionals, who can give you a strong advice. Also look for advice only, anf take it from several places. BOI can be a good place also.

Roxanne

[octave]

Heres an idea.

Register your domain as private.

Payments through 2checkout.com can wire to a thai bank every 2 weeks. You can walk in to any bangkok bank and open savings account in your name (only show passport). If you are worried you could use your friends bank account.

Payments show up as coming from a bank in Panama. I asked about declaring income and they said no problem for wires under 10M baht (in one hit).

I think they encourage it!

[cclub75]

Am planning a translation and interpretation business. Once you offer interpretation services, it could be assumed that you are operating locally, by definition. Regarding taxes, I am not aware of a tax agreeement between UK and Thailand. Would it be OK to post a Thai address, fax and phone number on my Internet site? I need these to boost credibility, etc. But this would in effect amount to having an office in Thailand... Can anyone help?!?

Cheers

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Services are the "royal way" for e-commerce.

Let's say that you have NONE issue regarding staying in thailand (visa blabla).

Here is the scheme.

You set up a LLC (limited) company in Delaware state (USA) with a "domiciliation" in Delaware (so you can receive snail mail). No taxes if the company do "off shore" business (no customers within USA). No accounting, the shareholder (you) can even "take" in the cashier for personal use with credit card of the company. Anyway. Small flat fee per year to maintain the company.

LLC opens a bank account in Delaware.

You find customers, do the job sabai sabai in your bedrooom in BKK, and the LLC is invoicing the customer.

You in Thailand take the money with credit card on the LLC bank account, or even wired transferts to personnal account in thai bank.

Voila.

Regarding "phone, fax, email" easy to do. Many companies in the USA can offer "local number" with a re-routing system.

It means : customer calls a "US number", and then the call is rerouted to your thai phone number. Same thing for fax. And snail mail.

From a marketing point of view you can even choose a "freecharge number" (800).

At this point : ZERO chance that the thai Revenue knock one day to your door to ask you for something..... And it is perfectly legal.

To please your customer and to ease their life, assuming that translation = small amount of money, i would advise you to "diversify" your means of payment : online credit card billing, PayPal account etc.

Once again : this is assuming that we are not speaking about the "staying" legal or not in thailand.

Easy to find : type "delaware create company" into google. Many companies offer the creation service.

[PvtDick]

And if you piss someone off, and they report to the Labour Department that you are working in Thailand without a work permit (which you most definitely are)...then what?

[LivinLOS]

My whole point of non thia related business seems accepted.. As soon as you sell a product that deals with or goes to Thailand you have a problem..

Immigration appear to have stated that working online for a overeas company is ok..

[PvtDick]

I haven't seen that statement, but I'll take your word for it.

[BKKdreaming]

I guess you will really be a night owl since the time difference is so much Thailand -USA,

Is this what you mean by working on-line for a USA company ?

[LivinLOS]

I haven't seen that statement, but I'll take your word for it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

http://www.thaiimmigration.com/inv/index.php?showtopic=46

Theres also some posts by Indo-Siam to say the same thing..

If you search telecommute on this forum you will see many people have been told that telecommuting appears to mean you are not working in Thailand even if you are here !! Your working in the home country of the company. They must pay you outside of Thailand.

[123ehe]

I would second the suggestion of a Delaware IBC, except you can probably find even better and cheapper places to set up an IBC. There are a lot of tax heaven (in the Carabean for example) where you can setup an IBC easily from the web. You can even setup your company in one island and have it's bank account in another one, with a different juridiction. This way, you can achieve a decent level of privacy and do on line business. Your ISP will only know your company's name