Business in the USA from Russia. Part II. Money and banks
Today I will try to highlight the money issues.
Bank account, cards, payments, PayPal and all that.
This is a continuation of the HOWTO topic : your business in the USA from Russia , if anyone missed.
I repent, repent, repent.
The title of the previous topic failed ... Somehow I did not take into account that even though the article is on Habré, the topic is rather a legal one. And this law is an inaccurate science, therefore no clear step-by-step instructions are possible. For this I paid in the comments.
Someone took me written as a guide to action.
Someone suspected of incomplete description of the problem.
In fact, I should have titled something like this: “My personal experience ...”. Maybe it makes sense to edit the post?
I solved my specific problem, and solved it quite successfully. but, of course, I cannot claim full coverage of all possible goals and situations!
Therefore, I suggest that we consider both the previous and this articles not step-by-step instructions, but rather sketches from the category “and this also happens like this!”.
I hope that people who are interested in the topic after reading my writings will be able to much better formulate their questions / set tasks for specialists - lawyers, accountants, etc. I see my goal rather to debunk the myth that "this is all - is impossible."
I also want to reply at once to everyone who comes to me in a personal proposal to do the whole process again for money / beer:
people! Thank you for your trust, but I am not a lawyer, I am, um, an entrepreneur. Albeit forced, for science we really do not pay. I (I would like to believe) grasps the whole picture, chooses paths, pretends resources, and breaks. I do not know where to 8-). And I assign specific details to specialists - lawyers, accountants, or someone else, who is much more appropriate for me to solve a problem and able to work meticulously meticulously until all the answers have been found.
I can give an allegory: there were ten thousand doors in the house,but she went out the window, I found a specific one, went there and came back. With scars on the face and prey. Now I can point out “my” door to the community and somehow retell in my own words what I saw behind it.
But the story (even accurate) - this is not a guarantee! I opened the account 2 years ago, and critical changes in the bank’s policy could be made yesterday.
So, I will try to remember how I opened the account.
I'm afraid I have to upset many people — I don’t know how to open an account at a US bank remotely. He searched for a long time, but could not find a single sentence that inspired at least some confidence. The fact is that after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the USA PATRIOT Act was adopted against the adversaries. Among other things, there are great cuddling banking operations that look like money laundering and terrorist financing. The banking regulator may request almost any information about transactions that seem suspicious to him, and the bank must have a response. In particular, the principle of KYC is actively promoted - “know your client”. Yes, in theory there is an option to hire a nominal director and pay him to open an account. But then his documents will remain in the bank - SSN, his ID and so on. And this is a very difficult question, how much later will it be possible to erase its rights to manage an account. And even more difficult - as far as possible remotely. In short, I did not dare to do so. Yes, and they want money nominal fair, only for the fact of inclusion in the Initial List of at least $ 500. Moreover, I was going to go to America without it.
')
Immediately after registration, I began to write to the banks. Since I needed international opportunities, I did not consider every little thing. I admit that this is a mistake, but it happened ... I talked to Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Fifth Third Bank. The most suitable option seemed Chase. Agreed with the manager, clarified the list of documents, appointed the day when I would be in Vegas, where I still had to do in other cases.
Let me bring the full answer of the bank manager to the question of what I need to have with me to open an account:
Thank you for your email. I will be most happy to assist you with your business accounts. If you’re registering, see the previous article. Note by the author. If you like to have a card, you’ll like to have a card.
Look forward to meeting at 10am.
I chose the day at the very beginning of the trip, even though it was not very convenient for me, bearing in mind what kind of a pain it causes to open an account for a new office in the Homeland, regardless of the bank. I wanted to have enough time to solve problems, if something suddenly goes wrong. No stocks needed. I had to have 2 IDs with me - a rather interesting topic came out here. it is a consequence of American egocentrism. My international passport was great for 2 ID. Why? but because it contains an American visa! I once got used to the fact that a passport is a serious document, and a visa is a vague piece of paper with a muddy black and white photograph. And there is the opposite. The visa is issued by a United States government agency, this is a Document, and a passport is accepted only because I said it is a document, and people there are used to taking a word for it.
In short, we talked remarkably, opened accounts, made me access to the Internet immediately. Immediately filled out an application for the issuance of two plastic debit cards Visa Classic, tied to the account. Maps were then sent by mail, I received them already in Russia. Activation is required - I just requested a balance at an ATM. This is paid because the request is from abroad, but inexpensive - a dollar, or something ...
Immediately after the opening, you can make money on the account, I put $ 100 in the cash office, before the first arrival was enough. The use of the account is free if a personal account is linked to it (paid) or if 5 POS transactions are made on the cards linked to the account within a month. You can also keep on account $ 5,000 on average. If none of these conditions is met - take out $ 12 yes yes. I, however, paid only once or twice - in the New Year's area, when the activity was zero. There is a trick: you should not be kept on prepayments / deposits for services - such as a subscription to bookkeeping, telephone or mail forwarding. It is better to pay with a card every month - there is a chance to shoot this way for free account management. And then I paid for the phone a year in advance, and then it happened that there were only 4 POS transactions in a month, so a hit on the service fee.
A pleasant surprise was the issuance of the full protocol of my interaction with the bank.
Today we are with you:
1. Opened a corporate account for company X (page 1-3)
2. Fill out applications for issuing plastic cards (p. 3-5)
3. Registered access to the Internet Bank account # xxxxx (page 6-7)
four. ...
It seems that Alpha is now practicing this, too, but then it was new to me.
After much deliberation, I decided not to bring in the coordinates of the bank. But I am ready to give them all in PM in response to a request with a promise not to shine on the network. However, I think that this bank is not one, in others it would be about the same.
With the Internet Bank (and the bank in general) possible difficulties. In America, increased attention to security issues incredibly gets on with some unimaginable inertia in these very questions 8-) Access to the Internet Bank = login password. Everything. Secretly-oh-oh ... But I had to (later) specifically call the bank and reassure, confirming that there is nothing wrong with using the account from the territory of the Russian Federation, it is so intended. We must be prepared for the fact that the bank’s efforts to protect the client (you!) From fraud will boomerang to the account holder himself! I sneezed atypically - get at least difficulties, at most - blocking ... Fortunately, I managed to explain something right away (I talked to everyone in the bank, I talked in detail and frankly about the essence of the business and the proposed banking operations), something find out for yourself and try to follow the rules (I listened very carefully to everything, both the manager and the security officer told me). As a result, the account was blocked only once. The issue was resolved by e-mail to his manager at the bank. Unfortunately, I will not undertake to predict problems, I can only hint: the more your banking activity is typically American, the fewer questions a bank will have.
Practical advice: it is much better to immediately start a local telephone line. And register this number as an official contact. This should be done the sooner, the better, because any changes related to security (and the client’s contacts relate to them) must “cope with” in the bank. It is impossible to change the phone and immediately get a call to it. Offhand, as it seemed to me, a week goes by. The phone or e-mail in the contact list is lit immediately, but the bank security system does not see it.
I will give an example. If you want to send someone a payment, you must add the recipient’s details to the list. It is just impossible to send a payment to space, only to someone from the list. And to edit the list just like that is also impossible, you need to get a one-time security code. Which is sent only by sms or voice on the phone, officially registered as a contact. And if something is wrong somewhere, then the account is difficult to use, even if it is not blocked.
I registered the land line with the possibility of receiving a text message in Anveo (at the same time promoting my classmate Denis 8-). More precisely, I started with others, but I could not achieve an acceptable result. But Anveo allows only one thing to be regretted: that they do not have Russian numbers ... The price tag is ridiculous - less than 2 dollars a month. In this case, they can call me or send sms (forwarded to my Moscow mobile phone) or fax. The room is a typical local Nevada.
Do I have to say that the phone number and the main e-mail need to be protected? I hope not. After all, subject to your physical absence in the United States, these are your only official contacts. And, say, hacking your mailbox may well lead to trouble with the Internet bank ... By the way, I repeat, it is better to have an mailbox in one of the western mail systems. Gmail is fine.
A fairly common way to interact with security systems is when you are called to one of the official contacts and a one-time code is reported by voice. Which pretty quickly rotten - 10 minutes offhand. And it is not recommended to make mistakes. And many times to request it again - too. I do not know the thresholds of the security system, but they consider repeated repeated requests for some period of time a potential fraud. This is how I ran into a lock when I had to urgently start a new partner in the system, but I still could not understand / enter the code correctly.
The problem is that this code is read automatically. And the international call, interference is not uncommon. And I personally do not always manage to disassemble these 6-8 digits. Therefore, I made it a rule: I stupidly write down any call from the bank on a mobile phone. Did not work right away? I will listen again. Usually, even in difficult cases, it is enough to listen to times 3, so that it is very likely to enter the correct code or just to understand what they want from you. You can ask the person to repeat, if you don’t understand, and you don’t talk to the machine gun - the recording works for these cases.
For me, it was a surprise that the American payment system is so different from ours. I'm used to the fact that there is only one option for local payment: stupidly a payment to the bank, then everything depends on the sender's and the receiver's banks. If banks are OK (that is, in the normal average case), payments are made on time, then the morning payment has all chances to be recognized in the beneficiary’s account already at lunch. Well, the edge - after a 17-hour flight from the Central Bank.
There is no way. First, there are as many as 5 opportunities to pay:
In general, the bank is very stable and “in favor of the client”, so to speak. That is, the incoming payment can hang in pending status for a couple of days, but money is available from the first minute. If pending is suddenly canceled, you can run into a negative balance, which is not good and not free, so personally I prefer not to master the money right away convulsively. I will never remember that I seem to expect to see some money, but I don’t have it. At least in my account, at least in a client. I never had to look for money, everyone who did business in Russia will understand what I mean.
Once asked to participate in an online customer survey. I spent about 20 minutes, I guess. But they sent a bonus - $ 5. Trifle, but nice 8-)
It all turned out to be ugly. Just logged in, just registered a Business account. I tied a couple of my addresses in the states, the first is the official office, the second is the address of the cargo forwarder. Yes, by the way, considering that then you have to give Americans your PayPal ID - remember that in this role there is an e-mail. I've forgotten for one account, framed the soap in the zone. Ru - so sometimes questions arise. It's easier to use gmail again.
Verification It was unusual. Despite the fact that I already had corporate cards in my hands, and I intended to use them, I was not given such a choice. Once a business, it means you must have an account. And the primary I had was the current bank account. It was the money that was sent to him - some pennies, then I thought for a long time where these revenues could be attributed to accounting 8-)
And only after I entered the numbers on the verification page, and the amounts sent came together with the ideas of the paper, did access to the account become complete. Then I was able to add corporate plastic cards there as well. By the way, if you pay with this ID, then the system actually offers to make an instant transfer from the account. However, I always choose the “pay by card” option to dial POS transactions and not pay for account maintenance.
Account type - Business, that is, I can accept PayPal payments, including plastic cards. I myself, however, did not move further than issuing invoices - we do not sell anything in public. I have nothing more to say about it, everything works, I have not encountered any problems.
From the very beginning of my work in America, I have been overwhelmed by offers of loans and credit cards. Literally tortured. From all sides. And eBay with its offer BillMeLater, and almost all the shops where you go (Amazon or Barnes & Noble, for example) and even the bank where the account is opened.
However, in life not everything is so rosy - ab-co-lyut-but everyone wants the responsibility for corporate credit card / loan to be divided between the company and its manager = physical person. And in order to share such responsibility - there must be a credit history, that is, the applicant must have an SSN. At-boy air raid.
And even in the bank, despite the fact that we have an account with a turnover of hundreds of thousands, we preferred to carefully hush up our application for a loan.
In fact, we do not need loans. Well, maybe it would be convenient to use a credit card ... but no more. Because the topic I researched is not very hard, and something could miss. But if you do not dig very deeply - a resume: there is no SSN, at least some of the directors of the company - no credit.
Another important note. It may be tempting to open an account somewhere closer. For example - in New York. And the flight is shorter, and more flights, and cheaper tickets. Grace? Not.
Remember, in the last article addressed the issue of tax residence of the company? Bank accounts - one of the principles for determining residency. If you open an account in a bank in another state, be kind enough to register your corporation there as foreign, get up for local tax accounting and pay taxes to the local budget. We don't need that, that's why I chose a bank by location - in Nevada.
UPD : Habrayuzer vitamin in the comments rightly indicates to me that the situation with the opening of accounts in another state is at least not unambiguous. Apparently, it depends on the specific state. In some states, opening a bank account requires tax registration (foreign qualification), in some - not. In each case it is necessary to check separately.
However, I note that from the point of view of a larger binding of business to the state of registration (which is certainly good), an account in the same state will still be preferable, even if it turns out that it is possible to open some other painlessly too . UPD ended.
Somehow this time a lot of letters happened. If a lot of gag (that is to say ordinary water ) - signal, I will correct.
Next time, if there is community interest, we could talk about keeping the company in good working order — taxes, reporting, corporate bureaucracy, and so on.
UPD2 . The third part of the Business in the United States from Russia. Part III. Accounting and taxes
Bank account, cards, payments, PayPal and all that.
This is a continuation of the HOWTO topic : your business in the USA from Russia , if anyone missed.
Disclaimer
I repent, repent, repent.
The title of the previous topic failed ... Somehow I did not take into account that even though the article is on Habré, the topic is rather a legal one. And this law is an inaccurate science, therefore no clear step-by-step instructions are possible. For this I paid in the comments.
Someone took me written as a guide to action.
Someone suspected of incomplete description of the problem.
In fact, I should have titled something like this: “My personal experience ...”. Maybe it makes sense to edit the post?
I solved my specific problem, and solved it quite successfully. but, of course, I cannot claim full coverage of all possible goals and situations!
Therefore, I suggest that we consider both the previous and this articles not step-by-step instructions, but rather sketches from the category “and this also happens like this!”.
I hope that people who are interested in the topic after reading my writings will be able to much better formulate their questions / set tasks for specialists - lawyers, accountants, etc. I see my goal rather to debunk the myth that "this is all - is impossible."
I also want to reply at once to everyone who comes to me in a personal proposal to do the whole process again for money / beer:
people! Thank you for your trust, but I am not a lawyer, I am, um, an entrepreneur. Albeit forced, for science we really do not pay. I (I would like to believe) grasps the whole picture, chooses paths, pretends resources, and breaks. I do not know where to 8-). And I assign specific details to specialists - lawyers, accountants, or someone else, who is much more appropriate for me to solve a problem and able to work meticulously meticulously until all the answers have been found.
I can give an allegory: there were ten thousand doors in the house,
But the story (even accurate) - this is not a guarantee! I opened the account 2 years ago, and critical changes in the bank’s policy could be made yesterday.
Open a bank account
So, I will try to remember how I opened the account.
I'm afraid I have to upset many people — I don’t know how to open an account at a US bank remotely. He searched for a long time, but could not find a single sentence that inspired at least some confidence. The fact is that after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the USA PATRIOT Act was adopted against the adversaries. Among other things, there are great cuddling banking operations that look like money laundering and terrorist financing. The banking regulator may request almost any information about transactions that seem suspicious to him, and the bank must have a response. In particular, the principle of KYC is actively promoted - “know your client”. Yes, in theory there is an option to hire a nominal director and pay him to open an account. But then his documents will remain in the bank - SSN, his ID and so on. And this is a very difficult question, how much later will it be possible to erase its rights to manage an account. And even more difficult - as far as possible remotely. In short, I did not dare to do so. Yes, and they want money nominal fair, only for the fact of inclusion in the Initial List of at least $ 500. Moreover, I was going to go to America without it.
')
Immediately after registration, I began to write to the banks. Since I needed international opportunities, I did not consider every little thing. I admit that this is a mistake, but it happened ... I talked to Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Fifth Third Bank. The most suitable option seemed Chase. Agreed with the manager, clarified the list of documents, appointed the day when I would be in Vegas, where I still had to do in other cases.
Let me bring the full answer of the bank manager to the question of what I need to have with me to open an account:
Thank you for your email. I will be most happy to assist you with your business accounts. If you’re registering, see the previous article. Note by the author. If you like to have a card, you’ll like to have a card.
Look forward to meeting at 10am.
I chose the day at the very beginning of the trip, even though it was not very convenient for me, bearing in mind what kind of a pain it causes to open an account for a new office in the Homeland, regardless of the bank. I wanted to have enough time to solve problems, if something suddenly goes wrong. No stocks needed. I had to have 2 IDs with me - a rather interesting topic came out here. it is a consequence of American egocentrism. My international passport was great for 2 ID. Why? but because it contains an American visa! I once got used to the fact that a passport is a serious document, and a visa is a vague piece of paper with a muddy black and white photograph. And there is the opposite. The visa is issued by a United States government agency, this is a Document, and a passport is accepted only because I said it is a document, and people there are used to taking a word for it.
In short, we talked remarkably, opened accounts, made me access to the Internet immediately. Immediately filled out an application for the issuance of two plastic debit cards Visa Classic, tied to the account. Maps were then sent by mail, I received them already in Russia. Activation is required - I just requested a balance at an ATM. This is paid because the request is from abroad, but inexpensive - a dollar, or something ...
Immediately after the opening, you can make money on the account, I put $ 100 in the cash office, before the first arrival was enough. The use of the account is free if a personal account is linked to it (paid) or if 5 POS transactions are made on the cards linked to the account within a month. You can also keep on account $ 5,000 on average. If none of these conditions is met - take out $ 12 yes yes. I, however, paid only once or twice - in the New Year's area, when the activity was zero. There is a trick: you should not be kept on prepayments / deposits for services - such as a subscription to bookkeeping, telephone or mail forwarding. It is better to pay with a card every month - there is a chance to shoot this way for free account management. And then I paid for the phone a year in advance, and then it happened that there were only 4 POS transactions in a month, so a hit on the service fee.
A pleasant surprise was the issuance of the full protocol of my interaction with the bank.
Today we are with you:
1. Opened a corporate account for company X (page 1-3)
2. Fill out applications for issuing plastic cards (p. 3-5)
3. Registered access to the Internet Bank account # xxxxx (page 6-7)
four. ...
It seems that Alpha is now practicing this, too, but then it was new to me.
After much deliberation, I decided not to bring in the coordinates of the bank. But I am ready to give them all in PM in response to a request with a promise not to shine on the network. However, I think that this bank is not one, in others it would be about the same.
Banking security
With the Internet Bank (and the bank in general) possible difficulties. In America, increased attention to security issues incredibly gets on with some unimaginable inertia in these very questions 8-) Access to the Internet Bank = login password. Everything. Secretly-oh-oh ... But I had to (later) specifically call the bank and reassure, confirming that there is nothing wrong with using the account from the territory of the Russian Federation, it is so intended. We must be prepared for the fact that the bank’s efforts to protect the client (you!) From fraud will boomerang to the account holder himself! I sneezed atypically - get at least difficulties, at most - blocking ... Fortunately, I managed to explain something right away (I talked to everyone in the bank, I talked in detail and frankly about the essence of the business and the proposed banking operations), something find out for yourself and try to follow the rules (I listened very carefully to everything, both the manager and the security officer told me). As a result, the account was blocked only once. The issue was resolved by e-mail to his manager at the bank. Unfortunately, I will not undertake to predict problems, I can only hint: the more your banking activity is typically American, the fewer questions a bank will have.
Practical advice: it is much better to immediately start a local telephone line. And register this number as an official contact. This should be done the sooner, the better, because any changes related to security (and the client’s contacts relate to them) must “cope with” in the bank. It is impossible to change the phone and immediately get a call to it. Offhand, as it seemed to me, a week goes by. The phone or e-mail in the contact list is lit immediately, but the bank security system does not see it.
I will give an example. If you want to send someone a payment, you must add the recipient’s details to the list. It is just impossible to send a payment to space, only to someone from the list. And to edit the list just like that is also impossible, you need to get a one-time security code. Which is sent only by sms or voice on the phone, officially registered as a contact. And if something is wrong somewhere, then the account is difficult to use, even if it is not blocked.
I registered the land line with the possibility of receiving a text message in Anveo (at the same time promoting my classmate Denis 8-). More precisely, I started with others, but I could not achieve an acceptable result. But Anveo allows only one thing to be regretted: that they do not have Russian numbers ... The price tag is ridiculous - less than 2 dollars a month. In this case, they can call me or send sms (forwarded to my Moscow mobile phone) or fax. The room is a typical local Nevada.
Do I have to say that the phone number and the main e-mail need to be protected? I hope not. After all, subject to your physical absence in the United States, these are your only official contacts. And, say, hacking your mailbox may well lead to trouble with the Internet bank ... By the way, I repeat, it is better to have an mailbox in one of the western mail systems. Gmail is fine.
A fairly common way to interact with security systems is when you are called to one of the official contacts and a one-time code is reported by voice. Which pretty quickly rotten - 10 minutes offhand. And it is not recommended to make mistakes. And many times to request it again - too. I do not know the thresholds of the security system, but they consider repeated repeated requests for some period of time a potential fraud. This is how I ran into a lock when I had to urgently start a new partner in the system, but I still could not understand / enter the code correctly.
The problem is that this code is read automatically. And the international call, interference is not uncommon. And I personally do not always manage to disassemble these 6-8 digits. Therefore, I made it a rule: I stupidly write down any call from the bank on a mobile phone. Did not work right away? I will listen again. Usually, even in difficult cases, it is enough to listen to times 3, so that it is very likely to enter the correct code or just to understand what they want from you. You can ask the person to repeat, if you don’t understand, and you don’t talk to the machine gun - the recording works for these cases.
About payments
For me, it was a surprise that the American payment system is so different from ours. I'm used to the fact that there is only one option for local payment: stupidly a payment to the bank, then everything depends on the sender's and the receiver's banks. If banks are OK (that is, in the normal average case), payments are made on time, then the morning payment has all chances to be recognized in the beneficiary’s account already at lunch. Well, the edge - after a 17-hour flight from the Central Bank.
There is no way. First, there are as many as 5 opportunities to pay:
- By check. During the opening of the account they issued a checkbook - cool. Literally Mr. Twister, former minister 8-) The check must be filled out, signed and sent by mail. The payee deposits it in his bank, the bank checks the check / availability of money in my bank, if everything is OK - the payment is made. Very long even in America. Due to the extreme postal distance from our correspondents, we do not use this method.
- Plastic card. Well, everything is clear. I was also struck by the fact that many companies have virtual POS-terminals. And many people accept payments by card details, either dictated by phone or sent by e-mail. All card details, including CVC, can easily be requested. This is some kind of "safe" terminal there ...
- Online BillPay is an electronic check. Almost the same as usual, only the bank itself is steamed. If the recipient can accept money by electronic transfer - send electronically, no - print and send a paper check. Up to 5 business days payment term ...
- ACH. This is what is closest to my local habits. Money reaches the next business day. Regardless of the time of sending the payment, if only during working hours. It costs $ 25 per month, this amount includes the first 25 payments, then for each subsequent payment some pennies, less than a dollar.
- Well, the most evil transfer - wire transfer. It costs generally 20 bucks for translation, international - even more expensive, $ 40. I didn’t read very long, but I didn’t see any difference in principle between the two last types of payments inside America. Another thing is that you can send a swift only in the last way. Well, here we have to podgadvat, to throw for the $ 40 more money. And quietly rejoice that it is not $ 100, as we have in Russia.
In general, the bank is very stable and “in favor of the client”, so to speak. That is, the incoming payment can hang in pending status for a couple of days, but money is available from the first minute. If pending is suddenly canceled, you can run into a negative balance, which is not good and not free, so personally I prefer not to master the money right away convulsively. I will never remember that I seem to expect to see some money, but I don’t have it. At least in my account, at least in a client. I never had to look for money, everyone who did business in Russia will understand what I mean.
Once asked to participate in an online customer survey. I spent about 20 minutes, I guess. But they sent a bonus - $ 5. Trifle, but nice 8-)
Paypal
It all turned out to be ugly. Just logged in, just registered a Business account. I tied a couple of my addresses in the states, the first is the official office, the second is the address of the cargo forwarder. Yes, by the way, considering that then you have to give Americans your PayPal ID - remember that in this role there is an e-mail. I've forgotten for one account, framed the soap in the zone. Ru - so sometimes questions arise. It's easier to use gmail again.
Verification It was unusual. Despite the fact that I already had corporate cards in my hands, and I intended to use them, I was not given such a choice. Once a business, it means you must have an account. And the primary I had was the current bank account. It was the money that was sent to him - some pennies, then I thought for a long time where these revenues could be attributed to accounting 8-)
And only after I entered the numbers on the verification page, and the amounts sent came together with the ideas of the paper, did access to the account become complete. Then I was able to add corporate plastic cards there as well. By the way, if you pay with this ID, then the system actually offers to make an instant transfer from the account. However, I always choose the “pay by card” option to dial POS transactions and not pay for account maintenance.
Account type - Business, that is, I can accept PayPal payments, including plastic cards. I myself, however, did not move further than issuing invoices - we do not sell anything in public. I have nothing more to say about it, everything works, I have not encountered any problems.
Credit cards
From the very beginning of my work in America, I have been overwhelmed by offers of loans and credit cards. Literally tortured. From all sides. And eBay with its offer BillMeLater, and almost all the shops where you go (Amazon or Barnes & Noble, for example) and even the bank where the account is opened.
However, in life not everything is so rosy - ab-co-lyut-but everyone wants the responsibility for corporate credit card / loan to be divided between the company and its manager = physical person. And in order to share such responsibility - there must be a credit history, that is, the applicant must have an SSN. At-boy air raid.
And even in the bank, despite the fact that we have an account with a turnover of hundreds of thousands, we preferred to carefully hush up our application for a loan.
In fact, we do not need loans. Well, maybe it would be convenient to use a credit card ... but no more. Because the topic I researched is not very hard, and something could miss. But if you do not dig very deeply - a resume: there is no SSN, at least some of the directors of the company - no credit.
New York, New York
Another important note. It may be tempting to open an account somewhere closer. For example - in New York. And the flight is shorter, and more flights, and cheaper tickets. Grace? Not.
Remember, in the last article addressed the issue of tax residence of the company? Bank accounts - one of the principles for determining residency. If you open an account in a bank in another state, be kind enough to register your corporation there as foreign, get up for local tax accounting and pay taxes to the local budget. We don't need that, that's why I chose a bank by location - in Nevada.
UPD : Habrayuzer vitamin in the comments rightly indicates to me that the situation with the opening of accounts in another state is at least not unambiguous. Apparently, it depends on the specific state. In some states, opening a bank account requires tax registration (foreign qualification), in some - not. In each case it is necessary to check separately.
However, I note that from the point of view of a larger binding of business to the state of registration (which is certainly good), an account in the same state will still be preferable, even if it turns out that it is possible to open some other painlessly too . UPD ended.
Somehow this time a lot of letters happened. If a lot of gag (that is to say ordinary water ) - signal, I will correct.
Next time, if there is community interest, we could talk about keeping the company in good working order — taxes, reporting, corporate bureaucracy, and so on.
UPD2 . The third part of the Business in the United States from Russia. Part III. Accounting and taxes
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/134074/
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