Hi
I'm looking for some advice on my current situation and what happens next. Please excuse my illiteracy about visas and tax laws in HK - this is probably a unique case and so it's been quite hard to find out any info on what I should do.
I have been living in Hong Kong for two and a half years. I have been on a sponsored work work visa for this duration. The visa itself expires in May 2013. I finished up employment with this company in April 2012 and from what i can see so long as i don't seek employment or work for anyone I can stay here until the visa expires in 2013.
Just before i moved out to Hong Kong 2 and half years ago I set up a blog to support one of my hobbies (sports). Over time that grew and started bringing in some decent money at the end of last year from selling digital products (teaching specifics of a sport) and advertising.
The money earned was enough that I thought I should be paying taxes on it so I set up as a sole proprietor at the beginning of 2012. As the money is essentially a royalty and i don't need to work to earn it I thought I could just add it onto my tax return as an additional income.
As I mentioned above i left employment in April. I am now essentially living of the money earned through the website - as I say I am not working for it and I will pay taxes on it.
I would now like to pursue this online business as I think I can grow it into a real business in Hong Kong (as a hub to grow it across Asia) - including hiring local staff. At present I won't be going over the $2,000,000 accounts audit threshhold this year - but it's entirely possible if I choose to grow the company properly.
So I have around 10 months left on my current visa to live in HK - Towards the end of the year if i want to stay in Hong Kong I will need to transfer over to LLC or similar and look to sponsor my own visa.
So my questions are
1) Is this change over possible? If so do you have any recommendations on who i should speak to and should i just wait until closer to the end of my visa in 2013?
2) If i can demonstrate in a business plan that there is a solid business possible and I can support myself and local staff will the money earned as the sole proprietor help my case (to show the validity of possible profits)?
3) If I set up the LLC and lets say I'm denied a visa then I'm stuck with a company I need to file accounts with (which i don't have to unless i earn over 2 million HKD i believe) . So do I try for the visa then set up or do it vice versa?
4) If i choose to leave HK before May next year and my taxes are up to date - can i leave HK and still keep the sole proprietorship and bank accounts here and run it all through HK (do i in that case pay the taxes to HK or to the country i am living in)?
5) At present most of the money earned is from the US/UK - but by opening in HK i can really focus on Asia. Excuse my ignorance but am i taxed the same on transactions outside of HK?
6) Is there anything i may have misunderstood or other options open to me?
One more thing is that i am a UK citizen so i don't have to pay taxes back to UK whilst i do not live there.
Thanks very much for your time