This is what you guys need to know. I want to tell you about a recent client this particular case, because this also might apply to you in setting up and starting your Amazon business. Do I need to set up a US company if I'm selling on Amazon USA? The simple answer is, do I have to pay tariffs or duties when going into the USA. This will depend on where your product is originally shipped from. Did you know you can sell Amazon products in the US without paying income taxes? Let me explain. I'm Matthew Fraser, and this is Amazon ecom secrets. I'll be sharing with you the secrets that helped me go from millions in debt to an eight figure entrepreneur. If you're ready to escape the nine to five and live life on your terms, let me show you the way. Hey guys, welcome to Amazon, ecom secrets. My name is Matthew Fraser, and in today's episode, I just want to bear all and share with you a recent client. When I say recent, I'm talking three days ago, brand new to my one on one mentoring program, and I want to dive deep into the exact questions and concerns that he has as he now launches this new Amazon business, potentially in the US. And it it made me think about what it was like for me when I first started. Now, I started in the Amazon training program back in 2016 and ultimately launched my very first product in 2017 in fact, with the Amazon training at the time, plus all my research and development for the product that I ultimately ended up inventing, because it didn't exist. It was, it was a copy of other products. It was the it was that car show me that I probably showed to you, the Patriot auto products, Car Show me, but it was a new design of new brand, and took a lot of time and effort to put that together and money. And it made me just think about, wow, that was there was all these questions that John was coming up with that I thought, This is what you guys need to know, and I'm going to share with that, share that with you today. The first major question that came up from John, and John is actually his real name, John. Love the guy, and actually put into context, John is 68, years old. He's retired. He was a former mechanic. Lives in Central Coast of New South Wales, and now it's just looking to get some side income in his retirement. And I think too, probably because he likes the idea of expanding his mind, learning something new, giving himself some knowledge, which ultimately, as I always say, knowledge is power. Because even for John, at 68 who is not that computer savvy, he can learn so much, not just the Amazon process, but obviously how to use computers more, how to engage with manufacturers, how to learn a shipping process and ultimately, how to start up an online business. So John's very first question was, Matt, do I need to set up a US company if I'm selling on Amazon USA? And the simple answer is, No, you do not, but John, we could set up as a sole trader, which is just his name clearly. And we could also set up as a partnership, a company or a trust. For myself, I just use an Australian company, Pty Ltd, registered in Australia with an ABN tax file number in Australia, and I simply use that as my legal entity to operate and sell in the USA. The next question John had was, okay, well, if I don't have to set up a US LLC or Limited Liability Company, no US legal entity? Do I need to pay taxes in the US, and the answer is, maybe you may have to pay taxes in the US. For myself, I have a product that is tax exempt, you'll also find too that for most people, they probably don't have to pay taxes. If you're an Australian resident with an Australian company operating in USA, you most likely don't have to pay tax, because the money that you earn in the USA will be repatriated back to, most times, to Australia, and then you pay tax in Australia, so there is no getting around taxes. God, I wish there was, I wish there was, I wish you could just operate in some like Swiss Swiss bank or Cayman Islands. Actually, that's an idea. I think I'm gonna ring up Jeff Bezos and say you should set up Amazon Cayman Islands and just operate out of the Cayman Islands. But no, seriously, it is very, very difficult. And trust me, I've looked of how I can minimize legally my tax obligations. Do. Simply because, like in Australia, the tax is in Australia are horrendous. My very first big year, just through pure transparency, I did the My biggest year was in 2021 22 I did about 15 million Australian dollars in a single year, and the tax on that, my taxable income came down to about three I think that's 3.6 million something. The tax was like, literally a million dollars for that year. And as you can appreciate, I had freaking kittens about it. And my mistake I was I didn't save up that money. I just spent the money on buying houses assets, yeah, not just on holidays. I bought up houses and what have you. Now, it was okay, because the tax bill came through ultimately, and I was still making money, so I just used the money I was making to pay the tax, right? But I didn't save up for the tax which, if, in hindsight, I would certainly say to you, is probably the better way to go, because if you have a decline in your business after that really big year, and you've spent all of your cash, you're now going to have to come up with that tax bill money. And if you've put it all into property, you don't have to liquidate the property anyway. It becomes a freaking nightmare. But anyway, I was good. I paid the tax bill. My taxes went to great causes, I'm sure, and then I'm sure the government spent it really well.

But I certainly wanted to minimize the tax I was paying. So I literally, I'm digressing here, guys, but I rang up My Tax Account and I was like, like, Paul mate, how can I minimize tax? Is now the time I'm doing $15 million this year. Is now the time to get a Cayman Islands bank account or a Swiss bank account. Is like, yeah, no, look, ultimately you're going to bring the money back to Australia, so you're gonna have to pay tax. So my point is, you is very, very difficult to avoid taxes. You will repatriate the money from USA sales, bring it back to Australia and pay tax. Here. Look, there is a benefit actually to paying tax, repatriating the money and paying tax in Australia. And that is that if you plan to live in Australia, then you're probably going to want to be in the position where you want to actually go to the bank and borrow money. You might want to buy a house, a car, etc, mainly a house. This is where it's really, really important. And by having that income shown on your tax return in Australia, the tax return is what you're going to provide to the bank. That's going to be a healthy number, because you've brought all the money back. Okay, yes, you're gonna have to pay tax, but now you can leverage that tax return to go the bank and borrow money to buy your mansion. Of course, that's if you're not going to pay cash. The other thing is, and you might, you might want to also buy investment properties. Most people don't want to simply put all of their cash into just the investment property. You want to leverage money from the bank that becomes a tax deduction, etc, etc. So I digress there. But bit of bit of good information for you when you're thinking about this. The next question from John, from John was, Do I have to pay tariffs or duties when going into the USA? Now, this will depend on where your product is originally shipped from. So it's from China, there's probably going to be some tariffs, but in my case, my product is manufactured in Australia, and so therefore there is no tariff, because Australia and USA have a free trade agreement, which means that they allow each other to trade without imposing more taxes, tariffs, okay, which makes it much easier for us to do business from Australia to USA. So that is one of the benefits, actually, of having products manufactured in Australia. When you're thinking about products manufactured in China, there is most likely going to be tariffs imposed on your products, even though you can get it manufactured cheaper in China, but certainly something to consider. So guys, I want to tell you about John and his particular case, because this also might apply to you in setting up and starting your Amazon business now with John and I admit when you're coming into something new, just like an Amazon business or anything, there is going to be a sense of perhaps skepticism as is this going to work for me? Doubt, right? Doubting not just the Amazon process, but in your own abilities to execute what is at hand, even if you have someone like me who's guiding you step by step of what to do, there are always potential pitfalls that can happen along the way, but you would have someone like me, perhaps in a one on one mentoring program, who can minimize those pitfalls and ultimately save you money. But for John, you know. Being 68 he's new to Amazon and an online sales there is something in the back of his mind that's saying, geez, I don't know, this may not be right for me, and that's perfectly fine, but at least with John, he's taking action, right? He's looking at other people saying, if they're doing it, why can't I do this? Right? Especially if I've got the right guidance from someone like myself, yeah, who's literally hand holding through this whole process. And that's something that you could even tap into as well if you want to reach out to me through the link somewhere around this video, come and join my community. But so what we've done for John is, instead of setting up in America, which is what a lot of my clients do, because America is the biggest marketplace, but it also comes with generally more cost. Now, cost in the setup. Now, in John's case, we've decided not to set up a company, okay? Because setting up a company in Australia could cost you in the vicinity of 2000 plus dollars. Look, you could do it online, very, very cheap. I think the last check i i did a few days ago was about $700 right somewhere online. But if you go through an accountant, it's probably going to be two to $3,000 for them to set up a company for you. Now, for John, that's another large commitment that we don't necessarily have to take. Because what I like to do is I want to form a strategy that is going to be best suited to my clients. And in this case, John doesn't need to set up a company. In fact, what we're going to do is we're going to simply set himself up as a sole trader, which means all he has to get is an ABN from the government, which takes literally five minutes on the Internet for free. We're going to set him up in the Australian Amazon first under his sole trader with his existing bank account that he's got to the bank, no company bank account, just personal sole trader bank account. And then we are good to go. We can set up in Australia, and we're going to ship in our very first test product into Australia. So the whole process for John in this pin, his scenario, is going to be really, really simple. And the reason I said this to him is what I just said to you before, which was that in the back of his mind he's going to be thinking, is this right for me? But let's just say we get through this process. We ship in our first product into Amazon, Australia, we make some sales. Even he just might think, you know what, Matt, I appreciate you showing me how to do all this, and we've done it really quickly, but I just think this is probably just not for me. And you know what? That's perfectly fine if I have a client that says to me, even if they've been with me for, say, two or three months, that this is just not right for me, not because of anything that I've said, just because they just might feel in their blood, just I just don't think it's right for me, that's totally fine. We can just shut the doors. The benefit, however, of doing it with me as opposed to not doing it with me, is that you probably save money, because there's so many people that I see in the Amazon community where they're giving it a go, and they spend like 20, 30,000 I've seen some people spend upwards of $50,000 on stock on their very first order, only to find out afterwards that, yeah, It's probably not for me. Now that is a massive chunk of money in anyone's book to give it a go. So in John's case, what I'm trying to do with him is to let him give it a go with basically next to nothing. Yeah, there's gonna be no cost to set up his company. There's there's no cost to setting up a new bank account. He's gonna send in a test product, which is going to cost him about $10 because of the way I've structured it for him. And he's going to get some he's going to get some runs on the board quickly, but he's going to understand really quickly as well. Is this right for me? And that's the best thing for him in his scenario. Okay, guys, so I've just shared with you some of the insights into the lesson that I had with John only a few short days ago about setting up in the US Amazon, and is that right for him? Now, of course, when I said to you that, he might be thinking, this may not be right for me, he may, but he also may think this is definitely for me, because we're going to get some runs on the board. We're going to be making some sales, and he may be hooked, and that's absolutely, absolutely what I hope for him. I hope he does love the process and realizes there is money to be made in Amazon, just like me, having done now nearly $50 million from nothing. But if he does decide that this is for him, then it's going to be a simple switch. We can then take the next steps of setting up a company, taking it to the next level, opening up the Amazon USA. We can then simply switch his sole trader name in Australia, even to his new company. So it's there's a method to potentially what you might consider the madness, but it works best. For him, and what works best for him may not work best for you, and that's why the way I teach people and help them is by strategizing what is the right formula for you. Because everybody's different. Everyone's different in their age, their ability, the money that they may or may not have to invest. And that's why I can structure a perfect program and strategy so you get the best and fastest and cheapest outcome possible, so you can make decisions move quickly and ultimately end up making a shit ton of money on the Amazon platform. So guys, I hope you've enjoyed that little pullback of the curtain into an actual session with a client on the very first call, and some of the things that we discuss, hopefully it's answered some of the questions that you might even have if you're thinking about starting off in the Amazon platform to make money. If you do, be sure to reach out to me. If you want some further information. You'll find my community link around this video somewhere, and I look forward to seeing you there. Thank you so much. Take care. Thanks for tuning in to Amazon, ecom. Secrets. If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to show your support is to give a five star review on Apple podcast and Spotify and make sure to subscribe on YouTube so you don't miss an episode. You can also find more at I'm Matthew Fraser on all social media platforms. Thanks so much. Take care. You.