Virtual Offices
As a rule, I do my best to ignore the thousands of spam messages I receive each and every day in my several email accounts. However, I endeavor to catch any real messages by skimming the incoming mail through the extremely handy MailWasher program.

Late last night, I received a number of spams from this company promoting the concept of setting up a more prestigious virtual office in New York City.

I'm sure it's the tax-centric way I look at everything; but setting up an office (virtual or otherwise) in NYC just seems like a completely counter-productive thing to do. I have written extensively on how to reduce or eliminate State taxes by sourcing income through tax free locales, such as Nevada, Florida or Texas.

In addition to the New York State income tax, New York City has its own expensive set of taxes. Anyone wanting the prestige of an NYC address for their business will end up having to fork over a lot of additional taxes for that privilege. Even if the business is really operated out of a lower or zero tax location, using an NYC address will give the New York tax authorities jurisdictional right to levy income and other taxes. I noticed that this point isn't included in the virtual office company's FAQs.

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 6/25/2004 01:06:00 PM Send this post: