Online Shop

cabla

Hey guys I'm living in Boston at the moment and I'm looking into starting an online store with a friend over here. Nothing major, almost side line to start with.

I know I pay taxes, but as I am on a visa I doubt I could set up this store as an American one, as my visa will permit one job only. Can I register it in Ireland and operate over here and pay Irish taxes? Or does anyone know if an online store even needs to be registered. I wont be able to go through with this if I have to register it in America.

I know these seem like amateur questions but this area is a first for me.

Thanks

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

"Registered" - what do you mean by this exactly? You can operate as a sole trader without registering a business then play taxes at the end of year. I don't think this will effect your visa as its not a job if your not paying yourself a wage, just taking profits.

However if you mean registering as in starting up a company, you can start a business in either Ireland or the US, by registering a LTD or LLC company.

Best of luck with the project.

PDD

Your biggest hurdle here will be getting a merchant account that will allow you to process payments for items purchased online via the website. While this is technically trivial as most e-commerce solutions have payment processing functionality baked-in, the real problem is actually getting one from a bank. There are a few hoops to jump through that vary from bank to bank but they are mostly the same. No idea what they are like in the US but here in Ireland you have to have a Ltd. Company or be a sole trader (which is more difficult).

In order to register a Ltd. company here in Ireland one of the directors must be Irish and resident in the state, so if both of ye are in the US then you cannot register a company here in Ireland. You can double check those criteria with the CRO (www.cro.ie)

If the profits go into the bank account of a registered Ltd. company in Ireland then your tax bill will be to the Irish Government / Revenue Comissioners. This should be less than in the US.

As a cavet I have not gone through the process of setting up my own business and online store so please treat all of the above information with a pinch of salt and double check it.

R3al

PDD wrote: »

In order to register a Ltd. company here in Ireland one of the directors must be Irish and resident in the state, so if both of ye are in the US then you cannot register a company here in Ireland. You can double check those criteria with the CRO (www.cro.ie)

I may be wrong but I thought I read somewhere that the director resident in the state has now been amended to a Director must be resident in the EU.

With regard to getting a Internet Merchant Account, your best bet is to gather some online trading history using a third party processor such as paypal or worldpay and then using this to demonstrate to a bank the level of turnover that your online shop is generating

R3al

further to my previous post

CRO states at least 1 director must be a resident in a member state of the european economic area or alternatively this is not required if the company holds a bond of €25K (part or all of the bond may be forfeit if the company fails)