Let us suppose that you are a freelancer and you are engaged in software development, do analytics, provide translation services, and so on. These days, business activities are regulated in a rigorous way (because governments love to collect taxes) and many of your potential clients will not want to buy services from a private individual. They will want to see an invoice from a registered legal entity that has a VAT number.
A possible solution of this problem would be registering your own company – an LLC or at least a sole proprietorship. However, having a company inevitably entails certain costs and obligations. The company maintenance costs will reduce your overall profit and the obligations can be rather burdensome at times.
Registering a company of your own involves set-up fees and it takes some time, at least a few days. If you are the only employee that your company has, then all the paperwork is going to fall on our shoulders. You will have to compile and send all the necessary reports and do the accounting as well. These activities can be rather stressful and what is even more important, they are going to steal your time. Instead of working on your computer program or translating a text, you will have to spend time on drawing up a balance sheet, for example. Now, you can hire somebody to do the paperwork for you but you will have to pay the person in this case. Even if you make enough money to hire some help, you would certainly be able to figure out some other ways of spending the money.
In addition to that, your company will have to have a bank account if you are to receive payments from your customers. Even though setting up a personal bank account in your home country does not usually require very much time or effort, opening a corporate bank account may take a few months in some countries! Besides, you will have to have several meetings with the bank managers.
Another thing that may affect your business operations is international tension (this came out of the blue, didn’t it?). At the current moment, the world is a troubled place and many countries are at odds with each other. If you work with foreign clients, chances are that your home country may refuse to accept payments from the countries of their origin.
You can easily avoid the difficulties that we have referred to above if you rent a company instead of registering one. What is the essence of the Rent-a-Company service? The company acts as an intermediary between the service provider and the customer or between the seller and the buyer. In simple words, you sign an agreement with a Rent-a-company, do some job for your client or sell him/ her some goods, and the rented company bills your client. In legal terms, the company acts as the service provider/ seller while you receive the money.
Naturally, the rented company charges some commission for the intermediary services. The commission is usually between 5% and 10% and some rented companies also offer fixed-pay plans. However, the rented company offers huge benefits in exchange for the commission.
First, you do not have to have your own company: your rented company is going to be a registered legal entity with a VAT number and a bank account. This will already save you a lot of time, money, effort, and nervous cells. If you don’t have a company to administer, you don’t have any paperwork to do. Because the rented company is the official seller of your goods or services, it will do all the accounting that you would have to do yourself if you did not hire the company.
The rented company can transfer the money that you earn to your e-wallet without any problems. This means that you do not even have to open a bank account! You can describe the payments that come to your e-wallet account as ‘compensation’ and then your taxable base will be smaller. So, you can save on taxes with a rented company too.
To avoid the problems related to the international conflicts, you can sign an agreement with a Rent-a-company that will have a reputable VAT number. You have a wide choice of countries where you can find this service but we suggest that you should consider the opportunity to Rent-a-Company in Serbia, a rapidly developing country in the Balkans.
Serbia is a unique country in many respects. Well-developed countries offer high living standards but the taxes that they charge are also high. Underdeveloped countries have weaker economies but their taxes are often much lower. Serbia sits in between, in a certain sense.
It is a European country, which already makes it a reputable jurisdiction. Serbia is not an EU member thus far but it is an official candidate for membership in the organization. What does the status mean in reality? It means that Serbia will eventually join the Union even though nobody could say now when exactly this is going to happen.
Serbia is outside the Euro zone too: the local currency is the Serbian dinar. This means that the country’s monetary policies are not regulated by the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. The local Government decides on its own how to manage the money and what financial policies to implement. In particular, taxes are lower in Serbia than they are in most of the countries sitting to the west of it. They are not the lowest taxes in the world, but they are lower than in Western Europe anyway.
And Serbia is everybody’s friend. The ability of the country’s Government to maneuver between conflicting parties is admirable indeed. Serbia actively trades with the EU countries and it declares its desire to join the Union, as we have mentioned above. The Chinese are investing heavily in the development of the Serbian economy. As far as Russians are concerned, they are welcome in Serbia as well. These factors make the opportunity to rent a company in Serbia especially attractive.