Building global wealth from South Africa #5: Putting it all together
Phew, we made it to the end! This took about a month and a half on and off to put everything I know down in writing.
Let's recap everything:
- South African banks offer both local EUR/GBP/USD accounts, as well as offshore-native accounts to high net worth individuals
- Invest locally and abroad in ZAR and foreign currency using EasyEquities OR if you plan on emigrating use Interactive Brokers and follow this when you emigrate
- Handle forex with fintech payment services like Wise (faster, cheaper, might be stringent on KYC regulation) OR use your bank's own SWIFT functionality (reliable, slower, more expensive). If getting paid by a foreign "employer", they might use an Employer of Record/global payroll company to make this easier for you.
- Read this for getting a business bank account
- You have three options for accepting payments online as a business:
- (Easiest) Use a Merchant of Record like LemonSqueezy
- (Hardest) Incorporate abroad using Stripe Atlas, IncorpUK or similar, to get access to payment providers that don't work for South African businesses
- (Newest, cheapest) Using a local payment gateway with currency conversion like Payfast (and hopefully more alternatives soon)
- Get an accountant to handle your taxes
- Earning more is better than obsessing over reducing your taxes - you cannot cut your way to growth
- Research how tax residency works for both you and any companies you might own, in both South Africa and abroad. Use TaxTim's questionnaire and PWC's Tax Summaries site for this
- You won't be double taxed, because of double taxation agreements
You know now as much as I do about payments, transacting, investing, and tax!
Further Reading
South Africa
- (Article) Comparing Business Bank Accounts in South Africa
- (Article) Don't obsess over tax and legal structures
- In fact, just read every article on EMEA Entrepreneurs
- What Peach told me via email about their multicurrency support:
To MoR or not MoR?
- (Podcast) Nobody wants to talk about this (SaaS sales tax)
- (Podcast) Super Fun SaaS Sales Tax (Part Deux)
- (Podcast) This would kill our company immediately
- (Article) Global Sales Tax Compliance and Remittance
Tax
- VAT OSS in the European Union: If you sell to a lot of European customers, this is an option instead of using an MoR, and will simplify handling sales tax no matter where in the EU your customers are.
If you'd like to see this post series in one long format, the complete guide is available on my website, free of charge! Check my profile for info.
Building an AI-powered cybersecurity compliance rocket ship
6 个月Here's one more (to get Stripe access etc)... you could incorporate in Ireland as a non-EU resident using a section 137 bond. All in you'd probably part with ~€4k.