Starting a company on a an Argentine friends D.N.I

[Vah]

Hi everyone,


My friend and I are about to start a business, or a Monotributista in Argentina. We recently found out that we need somone with a D.N.I to register it for us.

We have an Argentine friend - let us call her Sophia - who is willing to do it, but I want to know a bit more about what that entails.

Will Sophia be the official owner of the business and be able to do whatever she likes with it? Like sell it.

We basically want to know what the risks are of having Sophia as the official owner. I mean, we trust her and all, but you can never be too sure.


Please help..


Cheers,

V

 

[steveinbsas]

Talk to a lawyer about making a "private" contract with her.

 

[nikad]

And why should " Sophia " trust you in any case? She could end up legally stuck and in deep trouble...

 

[Davidglen77]

Why don't you start a company with all of you involved and have "Sophia" as an associate or manager as it's required to have an Argentine associated wtih any company started by a foreigner. Monotributista is not a company, an SRL (which would be equivalent to an LLC) and SA (which would be the equivalent of INC) are used to start companies. As monotributista you are very limited as to what you can bill / sell each month, so if you are planning on a real company with multiple employees or offices, the monotributista option will not work. Monotributista is equivalent to independent contractor / self employed.

 

[Vah]

Thanks for the quick replies,

We will def have som esort of contract and it is not that we have trust issues. I am sure that she has her doubts as well, we just want to insure ourselves for nasty surprises.

We have checked and a Monotributista will be adequate for the type of business we are starting. WIll it be enough to have an Argentine associated in the business?
So we can still be the owners of the business and have her as some sort of employee, i.e manager?

Also, could we also produce some sort of contract to make sure that she is not legally reliable for anything?

Thanks,

V

 

[steveinbsas]

We...just want to insure ourselves for nasty surprises.

Now that's funny.

 

[mendozanow]

Obviously, what Vah is trying to do is be able to do small jobs at whatever, and for those clients who demand it (as opposed to being paid "under-the-table"), he can give necessary documentation demanded by the client when he is paid. The "business" is probably small, and I suspect is only for a limited period of time. Many foreigners do this. If this is not the case, you obviously want a legal set-up as suggested above for protection. If it is the case, finding an Argentine to use her Monotributitsta is a handy solution, little risk to you. There is risk to her (she could get stuck having to pay the taxes to AFIP and ANSES), but there are benefits too, as it would add to her pension income later on down the line.

Davidglen is right, a Monotributista is for an individual worker who is not on an employment contract to pay taxes, not really for a company. It is not unusual for people to use it for groups under one name, but for any real profitable business it makes very little sense tax-wise.

However, contracts, even strict ones drawn up by a lawyer, are usually not worht the paper they are written on, as enforcement is the real problem. Either she is trustworthy or not, in any situation. I have heard so many bad stories about expats being involved with locals in business situations.....

 

[zaenden]

why don't you apply for an investor visa?

 

[Vah]

What does an investor visa entail?

 

[steveinbsas]

What does an investor visa entail?

An investment of at least $300,000 pesos (last I heard).

There are some comments about the investor visa in this thread:

Shocking new income requirement for visa rentista?