# Taxes: Operating a US LLC from Europe



## Alveko (Mar 31, 2015)

Hey there expats, former lurker here.


The background: 

I'm planning on setting up a US LLC online while operating it from Belgium (born and currently resident) as i see more opportunities doing it this way than targeting the EU market.
The business will be an ecommerce store. Both the product manufacturing and fulfillment will be done by US based companies.
The main audience/market will be US customers, not any European citizens.


The question:

Assuming(I've read it somewhere), since i the seller am based in Belgium, I won't have to charge any sales tax to customers outside of Europe (thus for US customers there won't be any added/included sales tax to the product selling price), will it be the VAT tax rate of Belgium(21%) that i will need to charge to the customer and add in to my calculations or how does this play out exactly?


I've tried to do some research about this topic myself but the info either didn't really apply to my situation or it was just outdated.
Any help/input would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks!


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

Check with the Belgian rules, but normally, if you are operating a business in the country, the company needs to be registered in the country. (You could, for example, establish a Belgian branch of your US LLC.)

Sales tax is a whole different can of worms. In the US, you generally have to pay sales taxes if you have a "presence" in a given state - and this can include something like a warehouse from where you ship your goods to your US customers.

On VAT, again be careful. Normally, in order to 0-rate your sales for VAT you need to provide the paperwork showing that the goods were exported from your home country - usually shipping documents from the port of exit from the country. 

You should probably talk to an accountant to see how/if you can set up your business to do what you want to do. But I suspect you'll need at least two business entities - one in Belgium and another in the US to handle the type of transactions you're talking about.
Cheers,
Bev


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