Separate companies for UK and Europe accounts
I know it’s not allowed to have two seller accounts selling the same items, but is it allowed to have one UK company to sell (only on) on amazon UK and another company to sell the same products on .de .fr etc?
0 replies
Seller_EJIX7rqDNQJi2
Do you mean registering a separate Seller Account on each of the 5 Amazon marketplaces, using different business details?
You would need to ensure that the accounts are not unified EU accounts but include only the 1 marketplace - UK, DE, FR…
Seller_x1xMSBwZsJrTE
If the other company is registered in Europe you’d be fine, but if it’s registered here HMRC will see it as the same business because you are selling the same products and it’s essentially the same business.
Seller_PY6qN1rPPfY0J
I don’t believe Amazon allow it anymore and I wouldn’t recommend it. I have a separate German seller account, but only because I opened one way back in 2007 when that was the only way you could do it. Amazon have allowed me to keep it because they respect the fact if they forced sellers like me to switch, I’d lose all those years of excellent feedback but I have had to explain it all to them on a number of occasions as they’re not too keen on any sellers having more than one AC.
Could you not start your separate companies but then use your UK company to sub-contract Amazon as an ‘ecommerce facility’ for the new ones? Or, set up your new European companies as drop-ship ‘trade’ customers of your UK company. There will be a shifty way round this for sure that still allows you to sell on all the marketplaces from one account.
Seller_qZO3ZCjoBXEeL
What are the benefits of this? Are you trying to stay under the VAT thresholds in each country by any chance?
I guess if Amazon allowed you to (which seems unlikely if they are the same owners and operators with the same products).
Also as separate companies each company needs its own stock holding, accounting etc. Seems like a lot of work to go through. Any sharing of systems, books etc. might be seen by HMRC as a tax avoidance loop but you’d probably need advice from a proper tax adviser with experience of cross border multi-entity trading groups etc
Seller_DlnasvFyAyS3W
Ah you are into the complex legal concept of the “person”
Each Company is a “Legal Person”; therefore if you have two companies you should theoretically be able to have three separate accounts - one for each company and one for your own Natural Person. In law all these persons are entirely separate and distinct. Each person is only allowed one account on Amazon, but you are not limited to the number of persons you can act through.
Of course Amazon are free to choose which “persons” they wish to enter into a contract with. I would also imagine if you tried to discuss the following with an Amazon representative they might not be able to grasp the concepts. Most of them are not based in the UK and as English Law is pretty much unique (to the UK and its colonies) in the way it works, most other Christian countries exclusively using Roman Law.
All of the above (including the Natural Person) are purely legal constructions; none of them are your actual “being” and therefore your “being” can flit between acting in the capacity of whichever person you wish at any time - which is why you should always deny being “Mr.” if asked by someone purporting to have authority over you. If you do not identify yourself as a “Mr.” or whatever title they give you then they have no statutory authority to act over you. Not that they won’t, just that they are acting outwith the Law, not that you would ever get a Court to agree.
Your “being” (the animus which controls the machine it inhabits or your body) as the property of your creator is subject only to the authority of that creator and so in the absence of a written order signed by God himself (this being a Christian country) you are free to do as you please, save that you cause harm to another in which case your being can be subject to a tort under Common Law. The theory being that your conscience which is the voice of God inside you will guide you and that God has ownership of its creations. It is the being which has human rights under the United Nations charter, including the right to be recognised as a person before the Law.
It is all fascinating legal stuff (to my mind); but your Natural Person is the person which contracts under maritime law (all companies are ships, their liability being limited to the ship and its contents as an extension of the old maritime law which actually applied to trading ships) whereas your being is subject only to Common Law or “the Law of the Land”.
Let’s face it, almost no one in the UK understands the UK laws, including most lawyers - you do not need to understand to the law to profit from the predatory exploitation of people when they are emotionally vulnerable, you just need to be a member of the “law society” gang.
Ultimately, if you are going to get into complex corporate structures, then your greatest protection would be to be operating as trustee of a verbal trust for your family which has only discretionary beneficiaries. You should never bequeath an inheritance to your children, you should pass it on to them in trust… when you own nothing, nothing can be taken from you.
So to get to the heart of your question…
My corporate structure works thusly:
I am the director of one company which imports and exports which has one only customer in the jurisdiction which is another company which I am the director of. This means that I only pay sales tax on the goods which stay in the jurisdiction, and then only input because it is unavoidable. The company which operates in the jurisdiction I am resident is has a turnover below the threshold for sales tax so I do not need to pay output sales tax.
The shareholder of both companies is my Natural Person acting as the trustee of a family trust which was created by my Grandfather. The trustee has discretion to distribute the value of the trust to any descendant of my grandfather, but is not obliged to do so. The trustee is entitled to reasonable remuneration for services rendered; which in my case is £1 below the threshold for National Insurance.
Therefore despite being in day to day control of a business with a turnover in excess of £1 million; I am a pauper who qualifies for (but does not claim) social benefits.
That is how laughable, corrupt and ridiculous our society and its laws are; which is why I want absolutely nothing to do with it. But I am not a fool, I just do what the rich people do and avoid at all costs doing what the poor people do. What the poor people do, is pay tax.