Due to unique and mandatory tax-filing and other regulatory compliance laws in Asia, the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) we assist often require outsourced support with back-office administration and accounting.
Since the majority of our clients are SMEs that require both legal and accounting services; to respond to their needs, our lawyers work alongside our finance and accounting experts to establish accounting management systems for our clients. Our professionals continue to administer these management systems until our clients are ready to hire internal staff to complete accounting and administrative tasks in-house or we alternatively continue to provide long-term outsourced accounting and/or administrative support.
We also assist by establishing accounting systems to fulfil mandatory monthly, quarterly and yearly accounting, tax and governmental compliance procedures. Our experienced accountants and tax advisors offer hourly consultations on profit repatriation and lowering corporate, VAT and other taxes and these consultation sessions often prove to be invaluable for our clients.
Alongside providing mandatory and routine accounting and tax services, our legal and finance professionals also regularly provide technical services such as:
- Asia-specific legal and tax research and advice
- Creation of tax optimal corporate structures
- Services to assist with ongoing operations – e.g. provision of registered addresses, annual corporate compliance and accounting services
- Profit repatriation services – e.g. remitting dividends and royalty payments from an Asian company to it’s overseas parent company
- Advisory work related to foreign trade payments, customs regulations and foreign exchange controls in China
- Legal advice on tax-compliant wealth structuring
- Interpretation of double tax treaties and transfer pricing law
We mainly offer accounting and tax services in China and Hong Kong but also our professionals also have networks to provide the same services in Japan, Thailand and Southeast Asia.
China
After the establishment of a foreign invested enterprise (FIE) in China, many post registration and ongoing procedures need to be fulfilled in order to make and keep a foreign invested entity fully operational. When expanding their businesses into China, some of our clients prefer to outsource administrative tasks such as accounting and tax compliance over hiring their own employees to complete these tasks. Our professionals provide these services to help simplify the initial years of business operations in China for our clients and set them off on the right path with regards to managing their businesses in an unfamiliar market. Afterwards, some clients continue to outsource accounting and tax work to our professionals, while others hire internal staff to complete this work.
Our clients have individual requirements and our objective is to provide efficient and cost-effective services tailored to their specific needs. Our accounting and tax professionals provide the following services:
- Monthly bookkeeping services
- Preparation of monthly financial statements in Chinese and English
- Monthly individual income tax filing
- Monthly VAT/business tax filing
- Annual and quarterly corporate income tax filing
- Annual auditing service
- PRC annual company inspection and business registration renewal
- Consultation with our experts on accounting and tax matters
- Profit repatriation and overseas remittance (dividends and royalty payments and overseas remittance associated with services contracts between a foreign invested enterprise and its overseas parent company or another overseas company)
- Bank account opening
- Cashier and bank teller service
- Billing services (fapiao/receipt issuance service)
- Social insurance, housing fund and employee payment services (including initial establishment of social insurance and housing fund accounts and bank accounts for employees)
Hong Kong
The majority of our clients that establish businesses in China and Southeast Asia incorporate a Hong Kong, Singapore or British Virgin Island or Cayman Island company as the shareholder of a business entity in one of Asia’s manufacturing or consumerism profit-making centers such as, Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, etc.
Many owners of Asia-based businesses conclude that; due to its transparent laws, advanced banking systems, favorable tax rates and reputation of being a safe jurisdiction to operate an international business, establishing a Hong Kong company is the first step in making a more financially-efficient business in Asia.
Although establishing a company in Hong Kong is fast, efficient and inexpensive, it is important for business owners to know that a Hong Kong company has ongoing accounting and legal compliance obligations that must be fulfilled. Our Hong Kong professionals provide a service that enables our clients to outsource their routine accounting and compliance procedures. These services save time for our clients, allowing them to focus on generating additional business instead of dealing with routine accounting and compliance tasks.
We also provide a registered address which removes the need for a foreign business owner to rent an office in Hong Kong. Additionally, the Hong Kong Companies Ordinance requires a limited company to appoint a Company Secretary. The function of Company Secretary is to be in charge of arranging meetings, keeping minutes of meetings and presenting legal documents to governmental departments in order to ensure that a company meets its statutory requirements. We can appoint our Company Secretaries to provide the following services for our clients:
- Opening company bank accounts
- Appointing directors
- Obtaining business licenses and registration certificates
- Payment of stamp duty
- Maintaining statutory records
- Preparing necessary documents for the Annual General Meeting
- Preparing the Annual Return
- Preparing documents to change directors or secretaries or their personal particulars
- Alteration of share capital
- Changing provisions in the Articles of Incorporation
- Change of company name
- Transfer of shares
- Bookkeeping service
- Establishment of accounting systems
- Compilation of financial statements
- Making arrangements for statutory audits