Setting up a branch of my Ltd abroad

[mylewicz]

Doing the same

My consultancy Ltd is growing enough that I should be able to set up another office in mainland EU - this will hopefully be more cost efficient than flying back and forth all the time.
As I am only starting to research the subject in more detail, are there any reliable, up to date places that I could go to and read about the process?
My current plan is to set up another company where I would be the sole shareholder for now.
I know Germany is a special case, but using that as an example, if I set up a GMbH there and used a German accountant to run that and keep my UK Ltd, would that suffice?
How would I then be taxed assuming that personally I spend most of the time in UK anyway - would the German dividents add up to my UK ones and be taxed here or would ze German taxman want their cut as well?

Are there any other problems with running two or three companies that essentially do the same thing?

I'm in the process of doing the same for my company (international trade, and quality management/auditing services). I used to live in the UK and I set up LTD company there. Now I live in the Poland and I'd like to open a branch (profits of which will be taxed in Poland) I'm not quite sure how to go about that... and what should be the legal/tax position of the UK ltd company and how I should go about paying out dividends, assigning shares for the new polish branch?

[Clare@InTouch]

The tax position could be tricky depending on where you're resident and where you're domiciled, and from a CT point of view where the management and control of the company is carried out. There's the possibility of HMRC wanting to tax a foreign company that's controlled here, or a foreign version of HMRC wanting to tax a company that's resident elsewhere but controlled there. Then there's the double tax potential for you personally, depending on what income you have from what country.

Is there a reason you cannot simply use a UK Limited for everything, assuming you're remaining resident here?

You'd need an international tax expert to pull all the threads together and ensure you're meeting all requirements across all countries, and ensure you're better off doing it that way than simply running one company that covers everything. It could end up being so complicated that you can't see the wood for the trees.

[yasockie]

My consultancy Ltd is growing enough that I should be able to set up another office in mainland EU - this will hopefully be more cost efficient than flying back and forth all the time.
As I am only starting to research the subject in more detail, are there any reliable, up to date places that I could go to and read about the process?
My current plan is to set up another company where I would be the sole shareholder for now.
I know Germany is a special case, but using that as an example, if I set up a GMbH there and used a German accountant to run that and keep my UK Ltd, would that suffice?
How would I then be taxed assuming that personally I spend most of the time in UK anyway - would the German dividents add up to my UK ones and be taxed here or would ze German taxman want their cut as well?

Are there any other problems with running two or three companies that essentially do the same thing?