In another topic I asked about setting up a business in Thailand that my wife would run.

SunbeltAsia was suggesting doing it through a limited company, but my personal feeling is that this is an unnecessary complication in my probably slightly unusual circumstances.Let me elaborate.

Firstly I implicitly trust my wife.(ok I know what you all are thinking) But I married an older woman with a professional job, who although she is not at the " independently wealthy" level has a reasonable amount of her own money. She is the one that will be providing most of the investment to set up in Thailand from her own money, my investment will be limited to providing the initial stock and that is only about 100,000 baht.

So I'm quite happy for her to own the Thai end 100% - even in the worst case scenario that's an amount I can afford to lose.

I think that as we are fairly small scale, the expense of forming and running a limited company would greatly reduce the savings we would get by moving production to Thailand. I also have this feeling that if I were to be a part owner I might have difficulty explaining the existence of my Thai subsidiary to my local tax authority as I'm currently below the VAT threshold and use simplified accounting.

So is there anything else I'm missing that I would gain from becoming a limited co ?

The biggest issue here is not about trust but about potential liability. There is potential unlimited liabiity in a limited partnership for both partners or sole proprietorship. Limited companies are good for most people because of this fact.

For example, it would most likely not be needed for something like a small bookstore, not many people die reading a book, however, it would be for any massive debt the owner ran up.

It really depends on a case to case basis, your best option is to speak to our legal advisers about your specific needs and potential liability issues.

[sunbelt][/sunbelt]