100% foreign ownership is permitted with Taiwan company formation. A minimum of one shareholder is required for Taiwan company formation if the shareholder is a corporate body. However, if they are natural persons, a minimum of two shareholders is required.

It is easy to open global corporate bank accounts to support Taiwan company formation. Healy Consultants works with internationally recognised banks such as HSBC, Standard Chartered and Citibank to provide corporate bank account services.

In its 2011 World Competitiveness Yearbook, the Switzerland-based IMD positively ranks Taiwan as the world’s 6th most competitive economy. The ranking takes into account factors including economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure.

Forbes Tax Misery Index 2009 rated Taiwan as having the 8th lowest tax misery in the world. The index takes into account corporate income, employer social security, personal income, employee social security, wealth tax and VAT/sales. Forbes suggests the index can be used as a proxy to evaluate whether a country’s policy attracts or repels capital and talent.

In its 2009-2010 Network Readiness Index, the World Economic Forum ranks Taiwan highly as the world's 11th most prepared country to benefit from Information Communication Technologies. Taiwan is also positively ranked as the 35th freest economy in the world and the 27th freest in Asia by the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom by The Heritage Foundation. Additionally, Taiwan is positively ranked 13th by the World Economic Forum in their Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012.

Foreign investors interested in Taiwan company formation are required to obtain foreign investment approval from the Investment Commission at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taipei. This makes Taiwan company formation a time-consuming exercise.

The minimum number of directors required for Taiwan company formation is three, plus at least one internal auditor.

Taiwan company formation requires a minimum capital of between NT$500,000 (US$15,600) and NT$1 million (US$31,200), depending on the type of company required. There are also additional costs if the company requires employment visas for expatriate workers.

The Taiwan corporate tax rate has been cut twice in the last year, from 25% to 20% and recently to 17%. The significant tax cuts are an effort to improve competitiveness with jurisdictions including Hong Kong and Singapore. A Taiwanese company must also register for value added tax (VAT), which is levied at a regular rate of 5%. However, a zero tax rate applies to exports.

All documents related to Taiwan company formation are written in Chinese, so non-Chinese speaking foreign investors face translation costs.

According to the 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, Taiwan is negatively perceived as the 32rd least corrupt country in the world.

Taiwan company formation is a relatively time consuming. According to the World Bank's Doing Business 2011 Survey, Taiwan is the world's 33rd easiest place to do business.

For additional information on Taiwan company formation, contact email@healyconsultants.com or call us at
(+65) 6735 0120.