How to Launch a US Business from Anywhere in the World

a business should be an exciting experience but you know what is not exciting it's all the crap you have to do when you're starting a business and there is so much of it you got to deal with all this legal stuff you got to do with formation you have all these questions should this be an llc should be an s-corp should be a c-corp what is it what state should i incorporate in it goes on and

on and on and on and on starting a business is welcome to red tape welcome to red tape we have so much red tape for you do you enjoy it do you want a scissors it's so frustrating. And today we are going to make it a lot less frustrating because I have talked to so many founders who struggle through this. I myself, well, first of all, hi, I'm Jason Pfeiffer. I'm the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. And

I am also a business owner, not of Entrepreneur Magazine. That is not my company, but I have founded companies and every single time I got to go through this whole crazy thing. And I got in a cabinet back there, like stacks of paper, and it's so frustrating. And today we're going to solve that problem for you. we're going to do in this webinar is our partners from doula are going to walk you through exactly what it

takes to go from idea to fully operational u.s business no matter where you live in the world what we're going to talk about today is which u.s business structure is right for you the best state to incorporate in how to open a u.s bank account get your ein you better get that ein become fully operational in as little as two weeks Talk about the three ongoing compliance requirements every US business owner must know to avoid penalties

and stay in good standing and how to maximize deductions and legally reduce your tax burden from day one. That is a lot. That is the big scissors of cutting through the red tape. And it is all going to be presented to you by Ariel Galla, who is a small business solutions, a small business, sorry, who is a business solutions advisor who's helped thousands of entrepreneurs successfully launch and manage their US operations. With deep expertise in company

formation compliance and international founders, Ariel is going to guide business owners like you through the complexities of starting and scaling in the United States. And we have a great solution. We're so excited to share with you. It is going to make everything so much easier. I am now going to cede the stage to Ariel, who is a wealth of knowledge and is going to be able to help you get your business up and going as fast

and easy as possible. Ariel, thank you so much for being here and for helping everybody out. Thank you, Jason. That was one of the best presentations I've had in my four years at Dula. I appreciate that. And thank you for the invitation as well for the webinar. Very exciting to be here and be in a position to help so many entrepreneurs out there to, like you said, navigate all of the red tape and the complexities of

launching a US business. Awesome. Well, take it away. All right. Amazing. Well, hello everyone. Like Jason said, my name is Ariel and I've been working at Doola for the past four years. I've been personally helped over thousands of founders from all over the world, the US and abroad, into opening their US companies, no matter the type, and launching their business idea into operations. So I will go ahead and share my screen just to go through a

couple of slides and navigate the entire process. Now, also before I kickstart, as you all know, there is a chat capability that you will see on your screen. Whenever I'm in a slide and you believe that you have any questions, please don't hesitate to pop in on the chats. I hate monologues. So if you feel the need to interrupt with a very important question that everyone can benefit from, please go and leave it there. I will

stop and I will definitely thank you for leaving that message there. So let's go ahead with that. Definitely. So launching in the US, the one and how of opening a US company. Yes, it can be a bit difficult, but fortunately, Doula and other companies in the space have nailed down the process to make it as easy as possible. Because at the end of the day, like I tell everyone that I chat with on the other side

of the screen, we are dealing with paperwork. We're not inventing water. It should be straightforward and anyone should be able to do it. That is one of the missions of Doolab, to democratize access to entrepreneurship, no matter where you are. So let's begin here. Why the US market? I think it's important to begin with the basics. Everyone is always, considering when starting a business, where is the ideal country to open it? And of course, right off

the bat, you start thinking about the US, you think about the UK, you think about the UAE because of the different advantages that they could definitely provide to you. And that's why in just six points, we have tried to summarize why the US is definitely one of the strongest cases to be put forward of opening your US company. The first is, of course, the USD. is the um one of the strongest currencies in the world definitely

the one that is moving the market for the past six decades and definitely up to this day is still mandating the global economy so conducting your business in the us dollar not only gives you global acceptability but also it is easier when dealing with international customers um wherever they may be because of them easiness of conversion in currencies. Secondly is the reputation. There is, you know, when dealing with customers and other companies out there, there is

always this sense of security during the transactions. And if you always do your transaction in USD, that's always a green flag when dealing with these customers because you don't have to deal with the complexities of all of the currencies out there and the politics of it. The third is liability protection. The US has been amazing in this sector since the first companies were founded back in the old days. When you open a USLC, a lot could

go down with your company, but at the end of the day, you as an individual are protected against whatever liabilities may come up from the business. That is always very good to have on your pocket because at the end of the day, you never know what could happen. Point number four, extremely important. One of the most frequent questions that I normally get, and that is banking. Opening the company is, of course, and we will see it,

one of the first steps, but that's not everything. You still need to have a proper US business bank account in order to get paid and make payments. So that's why having a US company, it's amazing because by just having a couple of papers, and like Jason said, the famous EIN, you can get a US business bank account wherever you may be, remote and that is great if you're in the us that is of course a lot

easier but if you're outside of the us you know having a us company can get you that access and you can get paid in us dollars you can make payments in us dollars and that also opens the door for credit which can also be extremely important depending on what type of business activity you may be doing point number five global business hub in the us i can tell you how many companies are created per day, but

it's a couple thousand companies. That's public knowledge. You can just Google it. And that just gives you a sense of how much the US business sector continues to grow every single day. So many new startups are being created and that just continues to build this sense of community across the different industries, e-commerce, real estate, consulting, you name it. And you're not going to be only was doing it so many other companies competition is definitely fierce but

also the market that you can tap into is the biggest in the world so everything you know it's is working like you know an invisible hand guiding you to success and the last one is the ease of setup and compliance this may be controversial with what we mentioned in the beginning that there are a lot of red tape this or that but that is if you don't know how to start a process and what is part

of the process. So if you go the DIY route and you haven't done any research, of course, you're going to run into so many different blockers along the way. But if you make the research and hopefully after this call, you'll have a good understanding of everything that you need to do to open a US company. And towards the end, I'm simply going to ask you all, now do you think that it's easy to open a us

company do you feel ready to do it and hopefully the answer is yes because that's what i'm trying to solve at the end of the day with this call and let's continue i mentioned that um with having a us company you tap into the biggest market in the world and that's that's a fact so the us market continues to be the largest customer base that um there is in the us of course you have countries with

many other people, you have China, you have India, but the access and the acquisition power of those markets is very far from what the US market currently provides. So that is one of the strongest selling points. Also, the environment is very friendly towards doing business. It's crazy to think that you could be living right now, let's say in Morocco, and hey, you want to launch a US business, you can do it. start to end you can

launch your company you can be operational with a bank account if you have customers you can start selling and you don't have to set a single foot in the us that is not possible with every country in their world so that is also very great access to capital it's also important because when talking about startups of course typically you're gonna begin bootstrapped and you're gonna be using your savings possibly or perhaps using funds from friends and

family to launch this business idea. But that doesn't always have to be the case. Let's imagine that you are also looking for a way to raise investments. And in the US, you can do that. There are private investors, angel investors, equity funds that are always looking for opportunities to invest capital and help you grow your business and scale it up. So that is also great. I mentioned number four already when talking about the customer base and

it's just the spending power of the US market, which has no competition as of right now. And that is also great. The global influence, of course, of having US customers validating your business idea, once you do that, it's easier to replicate it in other markets than doing it the other way around. Let's say starting from you, I'm validating in the US, it's harder and it's proven there are studies out there and it's just an example because

the US customer base is competitive, it's demanding and once you plant your seed and it begins to grow, you will see that the complexities of expanding worldwide, I believe, are easier in that regard. And finally, it shows the diversity of the US markets. I mentioned Acquisition power and spending power is great, but at the same time, there are so many groups, so many niches out there that you would think that there may not be customers for

what you're trying to offer in the beginning, but mathematically, I can tell you that it's impossible. We have seen this with so many early founders out there, and it's just amazing the amount of demand that there is in the market for so many business ideas. So that's another thing to keep in mind. I hope that so far everything is clear. Remember that if you have any questions, you can leave it on the chat, but let's continue

and get into the nitty gritty. And to answer Michelle, yes, these slides will be available for you to review after. No problems there. And you can simply request it to the entrepreneur team. Now, This is one of the most important questions, and that is choosing the right business structure. Now, there are only three structures right there, which is, of course, the limited liability. Thank you, Randall. The limited liability company, you have the S-Corp and you have

the C-Corp. These are not the only company types that there exist. You have nonprofits, you have limited partnership, limited liability partnerships, a couple of other companies. The two most important ones are the LC and the C Corp, the closed corporation, which is the full name of it. Now, the S Corp is not a company type, it's more of a tax denomination, which I'll spend in a bit. But let's begin with the most important of them all,

which is the limited liability company. This can be a single member, only one owner, and it can be a multi-member, more than one owner. Structure-wise, is the simplest of them all because it doesn't have any shares your ownership of the company is reflected in a percentage either 100 or if you divide it among different members you start splitting up the percent taxation for us residents well overall lc's don't pay taxes is a path through taxation model

which means everything that it makes it will flow directly to the owners and that's where is different for US founders and non-US founders. And for US founders, you simply pay everything that you get in the percentage of the company that you get on your personal taxes, simple. And for non-US customers, it depends a lot on where you reside, tax treaties. Typically in the US, you wouldn't pay taxes and you pay it in your home country to

avoid double taxation. So it's another advantage of opening a US LC. Now the C Corp, leaving the S Corp for last, the C Corp is more For when you try to raise investments, you already determined that I'm going to go for venture capital or YC Combinator or an angel investor. And in order for you to acquire that investment, you're going to have to need a C Corp. Investors do not invest in anything that is not a

C Corp. I mean, it could happen, but the percentage is very small because a C Corp protects them is what gives them shares so that they can buy the shares in exchange for that investment. So it's better when dealing with all of that equity. But that comes with more complexities because profits are taxed at the federal level. And then if you get dividends out of that company, you also get taxed. So it's a more complex structure,

offers more possibilities towards investments, but there is more paperwork. Let's leave it at that. And the taxation is the same. for US residents and non-US residents, you pay 21% on the profit of the company and then on the dividends that you get, you also pay another percentage like 10, 15%, it depends. So I know this is getting a bit more complex, so please leave questions there. Now the S Corp, which is also very famous out there,

but like I said, it's not a company type. Unfortunately, it's not available to non-US customers. This is only available to US citizens slash residents yeah i'm getting to that now michelle um and what the s corp allows you to do is as a us or resident or citizen and you are the owner of an llc you can hire yourself as an employee and pay yourself a salary and of course that comes with other complexities like payroll,

et cetera. But by paying yourself a salary that comes out of where you're gonna be declaring as profit. So there is more of a leeway there for tax optimization at the end of the day. So that's why the S-Corp at some point in the business structure and course should be considered, but only under certain characteristics that is always best to discuss with an accountant. Because starting as an S-Corp, from the start as a tax examination can

be costly when because of the payroll and all of this that I mentioned. But overall, LC, if you want the simplest structure, C Corp, if you want to raise funds and then S Corp for US residents or citizens, probably once you start making more than 60 to $70,000 in profit. That's like my guiding principles when selecting a company type. If you have any questions about this, start dropping it on the chat. Now, moving forward. This is

what I was mentioning about the S-Corp. You can access this after, but overall, Michelle mentioned more tax deductions since Trump changes. That is true. There were some implementations towards the end of last year, I would say, on the tax and how it is reported, how it is deducted for the company's LCC Corp. And there are more advantages. Now, that's why I mentioned always consult with an accountant because if you don't have that expert support, you may

be missing on deductions, write-off more likely, and that can be costly, especially for a startup that is always trying to maximize the savings. So thank you for raising that, Michelle. Now, yeah, I mentioned this. If you have, again, follow up questions on the S-Corp, please don't hesitate to reach out. Now, the second most important question after you know your company type is the state. What is the best state to open your company? And there is a

golden rule. Now, for you as customers, your home state, hands down. Yeah, sure, if you reside in for example, California or Florida, and you want to open the famous Wyoming LLC because of the privacy, you could do it, but still, it doesn't bypass the fact that you remain a Florida resident, tax resident, or a California resident, tax resident, so you will still pay those taxes. So at the end of the day, for simplicity, if you're in

a US state physically, just open the company in that state. is for u.s residents for non-us residents living outside of the u.s or even u.s citizens living outside of the u.s my recommendation for an lc should be wyoming why wyoming i'll get to that e2 visa in a sec katie if why wyoming wyoming is great because it doesn't have taxes at the state level because there is privacy, meaning your name as the owner of the business

is not public. And third, because the renewal costs in Wyoming every year are very low, like $60, which makes it great. So to summarize, if you're outside of the US and you are not a US resident, and if you're a US citizen but also living outside of the US and you want to open an LLC, pick Wyoming, it's the best. If you want to open a C Corp, no matter where you live, whether in the US

or outside of the US, the obvious option is going to be Delaware. Why Delaware? Because this particular state has business laws that protects investors and owners of C-Corps and historically has been the go-to option for C-Corps raising investments. The biggest companies in the world in the S&P 500, they are more or less Delaware C-Corps. So just bear that in mind. Now, Katie, to get to your question, if you have an E2 visa, are there restrictions? Typically,

yes. When you're in the US residing under student visa or, well, not tourist because you can't reside with tourist visa, but let's put tourist visa in there. Or if you are under any specific work visa that your employer brought you into the US, typically you can't open a US business or to be more specific, You can open a US business, but you cannot be the single owner of the business, and you can be the active manager

of the business. You can be one of the owners and a silent partner. That is the general rule. But I always say, consult with your attorney and see how this could affect your visa and your resident status in the US. Don't just jump into opening the US company before you do that. I hope that makes it a bit more clear, Kayleigh. um ramia also asked what if you live in a state in which you will not

have the business it doesn't matter if you won't conduct business in your state but you remain a physical and a tax resident in that state so at the end of the day that is where you pay taxes as simple as that so let's take let's do another example let's say that uh you reside in california okay and that you want to open a Wyoming LLC because your business is going to be online. It's going to be

e-commerce. And you're like, hey, you know, I won't have anything in California, so I don't really have to open it in California. What happens is that California, at some point, this could be a matter of days, a matter of weeks, will come knocking on your door saying, hey, Rami, you know, you are my resident and I saw that you created an LLC in Wyoming. What's the deal? What happened there? It's totally okay, Rami, but I'm going

to have to ask that you also register a business in California and that you pay your due taxes. Simple as that. So that's what could happen. And the same applies to every other state in the US because that's simply the state laws. I hope this answers your question, Rami. Michelle is asking, if I'm a US citizen but want to use a Singapore attorney to establish a global founder, what would be the benefit tax-wise? you give me

a bit more you know context into that michelle like you know we're trying to accomplish and then happy to discuss it so that uh also everyone can come here um no problems there uh you live in georgia but yeah the same thing applies georgia but opening the company in wyoming is the same you're gonna have to register or do a foreign registration which is the actual name of that in georgia because that's where you're physically located

i know that the state um everyone can be tricky especially when you are in the us and you don't want to open you don't feel very attracted to open the company in your home state because whatever reason taxes uh this or that but this is the the general rule that i recommend everyone to to follow there are exceptions of course let's say that you know rami's in georgia but he's moving to florida in two months makes

no sense to open it in Georgia. Just open it in Florida from the get-go because that's where you're going to be physically living in the next two months. So there are exceptions to what I'm saying, but only a few. So bear that in mind. And if you have any questions, always consult with an advisor, especially with the state. Now, let's continue. And if there are any other questions regarding the state, just leave them there. Now, the

process, understanding the process. In the beginning, Jason mentioned a timeline, two weeks, which is accurate, and it could be as fast as two weeks, but potentially, if you are in the US and you have a social security number. If you are not in the US or you don't have a social security number, then the process can be a bit longer, between one to two months. Now, let's divide the process into steps. Step one is to register

the company in a state. So previous question, you go through all of that research, you find the state that you want to open the company and you open it there. Typically on average, it takes five business days, seven business days to get the documents back from the state. That's the average. There are exceptions like Hawaii, like Pennsylvania, that it takes like a month, but it's just two states out of 50. Doesn't make a huge difference, but

the average five to seven business days. Once you get the documentation back from the state, your articles of organization or your certificate of formation, which is what they are typically called, that certifies that your company is active at the state level only. And this is important. You can't do business only with your state documents because you need to wait for step number two, which is the most important step. which is getting your EIN number, the employer

identification number. Now the EIN is a sucker stuff. It's what everyone is always a bit fearful about, especially when you are outside of the US and you don't have a social security number. Why? Because the IRS, who is the agency that gives the EIN, it's not known to be fast in these matters so if you're uh if you have an SSN it's it's a matter of minutes to get it online but if you don't you have

to send paperwork into the IRS requesting the EIN and then the IRS has of course a backlog and typically it takes this time of the year that is not tax season between six to eight weeks to get the EIN there are ways to get faster, to expedite it, but on average, six to eight weeks. And once you have the EIN, then you are officially in business. You are active at the state level, but most importantly, you

are active at the federal level. Then you can operate. Next step is obviously to get your business bank account with a bank of your preference, a bank where you meet all of their requirements, and this is important. In the US, there could be hundreds of banks all of them with similar or different requirements. So once you identify your top three or top five, you go through the requirements, see that you meet them all, and then you

complete the application. But that also requires research on your end. Don't just jump into the banking application without knowing beforehand what they are going to require of you. Of course, the business documents that I mentioned, but they could require a passport, it could require documents to verify your home address. So do that research as well. I'll stop here because I see a question from Fadi, who lives in Ghana. What would be the best way? If you're

not raising funds, Fadi, I would recommend an LLC in Wyoming. That's the go-to recommendation for you to enter the US market and get set up. This is a simplistic answer. Of course, if you have more context, this could change. But from what you mentioned, that would be my recommendation. All right. Kate, what if you are an online business, would you recommend a virtual business address? This is a great question. Thank you for bringing that up, Kate.

Typically, when you open a business in the US, no matter the states, it could be your home states, I typically recommend that you don't use, if you're in the US that is, because international funders don't have this problem. But if you're in the US, I don't recommend that you use your home address because of course, I mean, Perhaps you're not like me and I do like my privacy, but if you use your home address when registering

your business, your home address is going to be public. And literally anyone can go into the STAPE's website, look for your business name, and they will see your name and your address. So if you instead use a virtual address or registration address like Tula and other providers can typically give you, that's another layer of privacy gates. And that's what I would definitely recommend, okay? it's great question that you raised there now process wise is this step

one state registration step two eim number and step three opening the business bank account after these three steps you're operational you can go and start offering your services and your products etc then it's all about keeping the company legal or the ongoing yeah i like my privacy it's about keeping the company compliance and that is the next slide Now, Jason mentioned this in the beginning. There are three important compliances. I call them the Trinity of compliance.

Once you memorize these three compliances, nothing will fall through the cracks on your end, and you are always going to be on top of what you have to do, only three. The first, and let's begin from easiest to hardest. The first is the state compliance. So you have your state where your LLC is registered. About every year, typically, This is not always, typically, depending on the state, you have to do what is called an annual report,

which is another way of saying you have to pay the state a fee. Let's take Wyoming, for example. If you have your LC in Wyoming, every year you have to pay $61 to the state. It's nothing crazy, but it's very important that you pay the state fee to Wyoming. Another example, in Delaware, the state fee every year, $300. In Florida, 138. In California, 800. Every state has different fees. But it's very important to pay the state

fee. There could be a specific date where it needs to be paid or a specific month where this needs to be paid. If this is not done when it is due, first you get a penalty, of course, so that you end up paying more. And if even then you don't do the state report, the state will dissolve your company. And that is an even bigger problem. So very important to do the state compliance. Number two, I'll

change the order. I'll go with bookkeeping as the next one. Now, bookkeeping is another name for banking reconciliation, which is simply saying every single transaction that will enter or leave your business bank account needs to be categorized. Now, the IRS has a list of probably, I don't know, like 50, 100 categories that bookkeeping is simply finding the right category for the specific transaction. And why is this important, you may ask? Because every month you need to

do the bookkeeping for all of your transactions so that at the end of the year, of the fiscal year, you can create the financial statements of the company. at least the three most important ones, you may have heard of them, which is the balance sheet, the income statement, and your profit and loss statement. Because these three statements are going to be a must, a requirement to complete your federal tax filing. So if you go to any

CPAs or if you file your taxes yourself because you have done it before, you're going to have to use these three statements to complete the required tax forms for the LC or the C Corp or the S Corp when filing your taxes. So it's most important. Now, what happens? Because I mentioned what happens if you don't do the state compliance. So what happens if you don't do bookkeeping? You're not going to get a penalty because you

don't have to deliver the bookkeeping to the state or even to the IRS. But two issues will come up. The first, When you, let's say you are gonna file your taxes and you don't have your bookkeeping done and you go to a CPA, they're gonna be like, what am I gonna use to file the taxes? Bank statements, that's crazy. I won't be able to do that. So what they're gonna basically force you is to do a

catch up service. Oh, sorry. Terp, you mentioned to repeat the statement. Well, I was just mentioning it. If you don't do the bookkeeping and tax season comes and you have to file your taxes and you go to a CPA and you don't have the bookkeeping done and your statements are not done, then the CPA is going to be like, hey, I need information. I need the statements. I can do it for you, but that's going to

be an extra cost. It's a catch up service is the name of it. And it's extremely expensive during tax season. And this is 100% avoidable. That's problem number one. Problem number two is that, let's say you get audited by the IRS in a few years. One of the first thing that the IRS is going to look into is your bookkeeping information. They need to reconcile your transaction with what you have been declaring on your taxes. And

the only way to do that is bookkeeping. So if you don't have that, now that is an even bigger problem. So that's bookkeeping. And then federal taxes, IRS, corporate, however you want to call it. If you don't do this, that's the biggest of the problems because of course you're going to be on the IRS blacklist. And if you don't do the tax filings by the till date, then you get interest on the taxes that you would

have to pay. And this continues to grow every day. And if you don't pay the taxes or you don't declare the taxes at all, then there are bigger penalties, which begin at $25,000. So bigger numbers we're talking. And that's really good to the compliance. Let me jump into the chat. I see a question from Agringo in Peru. Can I change from LC to C Corp? Yes, you can. It depends on the state where the LC is

located, but typically it is a process that the states accept and allow you to do, so you can do it. I see a comment in French. Not sure if that is spam. Malgudi, after a new digital consulting business registration in one of the US states, can we do business or serve a customer client physically located in another US state? Yes. When you open a US business in whichever state, you can offer services to customers in other

US states and even in other countries. So excellent question that you base there, Malgudi. You don't have any limitations in that regard. oh okay um third you're mentioning the statements is the income statement the balance sheet and the profit and loss those are the three financial statements that every business needs at the end of the fiscal year in order to file the taxes okay perfect now let's continue I know compliance hey this is another complicated area

when opening a business and keeping it legal, but as long as you remember these three, I promise that everything will go okay and nothing will fall through the cracks. It's just about finding the right set of help if you are not an expert on doing any of the three so that it can be done properly. That's it. Okay. Let's continue. Startup costs. Now, whenever you open a business, of course, the IRS will give you some flexibility,

especially for the first year. So this is only available for the first year. You can deduct up to $5,000 in startup costs, general startup costs, and another $5,000 in organizational costs. And this is only available, like I mentioned. the first year of operations and the cost incurred even prior to the registration of the business because of course you don't have a business bank account yet you pay with your personal most likely all of that you can

add into the business bookkeeping and get it as a deduction with the irs now if let's say you you spend more than ten thousand dollars or consider you can still amortized that amount over the next 15 years under the current tax law, which that is also great. Now, what is a startup cost and what is an organizational cost? This is general information, but there you can see the most common ones. Startup costs, market research, if you

pay any advertising, if you already spend on the ads, even before the business opens, travel costs associated to the business, all of that, typical startup costs. Now, organizational costs, is more on the legal side of things on the paperwork. So legal fees, state filing fees, and costs associated with opening the company, say with doula, with another provider. All of that can also be deducted. So that's also great to consider. Next, this is important, general taxation. I

briefly mentioned this on the different company types, but let's go over it again so that everyone has a good understanding. The LLC. The simplest of them all is, like I said, considered a pass-through taxation, which means the profit passed directly into the owners of the company. And if you are outside of the US, and this is one of the golden rules or the golden factors that really draw a lot of attention from international funders, if you

don't have effectively connected income, ECI, how it's called, in the US, which means you don't have a physical presence, you don't have a US office, you don't have US employees, you don't live in the US, you don't have warehouses. There is nothing tying you physically to the US, US customers don't count. Then you file your taxes, but you shouldn't have to pay any federal taxes in the US. Why? Because the IRS considers that the business activity,

you are physically doing it from your home country, and that is where you should pay taxes. That's the way that it goes. And that is great for international founders. US founders, of course, if you're in the US, you simply pay on your personal taxes. All right. Now, C Corp is completely different. There are two taxes paid with C Corp. Always 21%, like I mentioned, on the federal level, on the profit that you declare. And then you

typically pay like 10% to 15% when you get dividends from the C Corp to your personal account. no matter where you are, whether in the US or outside of the US. All right. So that's C-Corps in a nutshell. All right. Let me see any questions. All right. No questions. Yeah. Welcome, Isaac. My Dupa business. Let's continue. Time is of the essence. Maximizing business deductions. This is great. Okay. So at some point, you're going to have to

pay taxes. Probably. Who knows? but if you have yourself a good accountant or you become rather familiar with how to handle your tax optimization you can at the end of the day try to maximize your expenses and minimize your profit so that's the game that you have to pay legally of course but that you have to be on top of to avoid paying a large amount of unnecessary taxes what can be a business deduction. There are

different categories. You have business expenses, which is the ordinary. You have utilities, you have your rent, office supplies, business travel. Now, rent, that is if you work outside of your home, obviously. Now, you have home office deductions. This is more like your setup cost. So here you can put a portion of your mortgage, which is calculated with a formula. depending on how big the house is and other factors. If you don't have mortgage but you have

rent, you can do something similar. Utilities like internet, gas, electricity, all of that can be put there. Even home insurance can also be put into a business adoption. Vehicle expenses. If the vehicle is owned by the business, you can also put gas, insurance, maintenance under the business as well. General rule, like I put there from the IRS is ordinary and necessary is deductibility of any particular expense for business purposes, like black or white. Anyone can see

that is a business expense, so you put it as a deduction. And there are others that are more common to your industry that requires a bit more of a support from a CPA, but that you could also deduct it. So again, having a good accountant, a good understanding of this can save you money that's what i want you to take away from this um i see a question if i need to do fundraising as a non-profit

but not in the us unfortunately on that point i can't advise i'm mostly an expert on the us side of things but i would imagine that if you want to raise funds outside of the us there are similar processes you find yourself an investor and you create a company structure non-profit in this case and then you get that investment. But I don't know the specifics. I'm sorry, my business. Julie, I have a question from you. If

you have a business in one state but still sell books in all states across the US, how could you handle the sales tax in the book sales? Oh, that's a lovely question. And now we tap into a very specific type of taxes, which is sales tax. Now, this doesn't always apply, and this is what I want you all to understand. from the start. Sales tax, 95% of the time only applies to physical products that you sell,

like in this case from Julie, books. So let's say that Julie's company is in Florida, but she's selling books via, let's say, Amazon or Shopify to customers in California. So typically what is going to happen is Amazon and Shopify for those customers in California will collect sales tax from each of those purchases. And then this platform, Shopify and Amazon will pay these sales tax back to the state of California. So that's how sales tax is typically

handled. It's not a tax that will come out of the revenue, let's say that the business is making. Everyone in the US is accustomed to paying sales tax for different things, but that's how it's handled. Terp Girl, you asked, does a mortgage needs to be in the name of the business owner for tax write-off? Pretty much, yes. But again, the specifics on how to deduct mortgage and even rent, there are formulas about this, so check with

an accountant to understand how this can be done. But yes, of course, there needs to be a way to tie the business to whoever is paying that mortgage or rent. If it's not in the name of the business owner, how would you make that deduction or link? So let's continue. A couple of tips to avoid non-compliance. I mentioned the three of them. So always pay your taxes and file them in time to avoid interest, to avoid

fines. Use a reliable accounting or bookkeeping software to keep all of your bookkeeping up to date. Typically try to do it monthly to avoid accumulation of information that could become a headache on your end. Always and always number three, I can't stress how important this is because I see, I have seen some business owners make this mistake. Don't mix your business expenses with your personal expenses. Try to keep them separate as soon as you have your

business bank account before you It is acceptable, like I mentioned, for the organizational costs, like setting up the LC, paying the state fees. But once you have your business bank account, use it for business transactions and then your personal account for your personal transactions. This is extremely important because if you don't do this, there's going to be a commingling of bank accounts and sources, and that is also a source of penalty from the IRS. And yeah.

Point number five, it goes without saying, always trying to find a form of professional tax support, a CPA or someone extremely familiar with this in order to find your taxes. And here we get to the point of opening the company, the process, the compliance. Okay, one final question before we move forward. If it's okay to share, I have a bookkeeping and an accounting firm. Okay, the financial statements reporting on keeping up with... Okay, perfect. Thank you

for sharing that information. Everyone can... Yeah, and like you said, never commingle. Avoid that. Now, just before I wrap up, of course, I mentioned I'm from Dula, and obviously we can help with everything that I've mentioned so far. So we can open your business company in whichever state. We open in all 50 states. You can head over to our website. You can see... a QR code at the bottom of the screen and we can walk you

through the process. You can jump on a call pretty much like I'm talking with you guys right now with our business advisors and address your specific situation at any time. So don't hesitate. And we can start your business. We can educate you on how to run that business from the start to the ongoing compliances and you can join our community but most importantly i think we're going to help you stay compliant like i mentioned you know

we can offer you that virtual address to safeguard your personal address if you're in the us and if you're not in the us then you're going to need a us address either way we can provide it we can also help you with the bookkeeping with the state report and with the federal tax finance with all of that so That's Dula in a nutshell. And like I mentioned at the very start of the presentation and it's our

driving mission, we really want to help a billion entrepreneurs from all over the world. And we're getting there. So far, we are about 20,000, give or take, but it's encouraging to see that every single day more people are trying to launch their business. And like I mentioned, as of right now, a couple of customers that we have within Dula, of reviews if you're like me and you like to see the reviews please go into trustpilot and

see what tool is all about don't just take it on my word you can also check there and here and just before i wrap up the presentation you have the qr code there you will have access to this slide deck and you can book a demo by just clicking on book a demo button no problems there and yeah this is my presentation so far let me see if any Final question, I see one from Varun, and

if any of you have any other questions, please drop them in there. But Varun says, I'm an Indian resident with an ITIN, and I have a business register in Wyoming. How can I get a payment gateway as I'm being asked for a local signer? if i'm not involved stripe is not an option okay it's very odd that stripe is not an option because with a wyoming lc and an itin should be extremely easy to open stripe

but also you have people as an option and i'm gonna drop in the chat for you and for everyone because there are some stripe alternatives that you might want to check other payment processors out there. Let me see how I can drop it. Well, I'll tell the host to drop the link on the chat and you will see it there. But yeah, check out the article that will be shared with you of other Stripe alternatives. And

perhaps, Baron, you'll be able to see one that could help you other than Stripe. Yeah, let me see if you have any other questions. No other questions. So either I did an amazing job or you're gonna do your research and then probably you're gonna come back with the new questions. So I'll leave it back to you. You can take it over Jason. Ah, okay, perfect. Well, Jason is dealing with something else. So thanks everyone for joining

the call. And if you have any questions, please take a look at the slides, reach out to Dulay if you have any questions or support and looking forward to helping you with all of this.