Tax that survives bank scrutiny – across Hong Kong, China, and Singapore.
For founders running cross-border structures between HK and China, holding companies in Singapore, defending offshore claims to skeptical auditors, or getting the China VAT refund to land. Built by someone who’s been on every side of these questions personally.
You’re probably here because…
One of these is your situation right now.
You want 0% tax in Hong Kong.
You incorporated in Hong Kong and want the offshore exemption. There is a thing though: sometimes it is better not to apply for it.
Here is the logic. When your passport – or where you operate and who you sell to – means banks and government watch your accounts closely, a 0% tax declaration in your audited file is exactly the flag they look for.
Sometimes the right move is the opposite: pay Hong Kong tax voluntarily as a trust signal to the banks and tax office, and reduce your effective tax in other legal ways. The savings are smaller than offshore, but that is the cost of doing legal international business for someone like us.
We say “us”, because we understand these barriers too and run our own company onshore for exactly this reason.
We’ll tell you whether offshore is worth the risk for your specific profile, and what the alternative path to lower tax looks like.
Let’s talk →You have a complex multi-country structure – and want to pay less tax legally.
Your business spans more than one country. Hong Kong holding, China WFOE, maybe Singapore or other intermediaries, contractors paid through different jurisdictions, several operating entities. Your accountant in each place sees only their own piece – nobody is looking at the whole structure and telling you what tax you’re paying in total, and where you’re paying more than the law requires.
We run our own entities in several jurisdictions. We’ll map your current structure end to end, identify where tax is concentrated unnecessarily, and tell you what to restructure – or not restructure – to reduce the total bill within the law.
Let’s talk →Your bank or your country of residence started asking about tax.
They’ve seen dividend or reimbursement flows they don’t fully understand. They want documents you don’t have, or explanations you aren’t sure how to formulate. Your accountant knows accounting in Hong Kong, Singapore, or China, but their expertise stops at filing the forms.
We’ll walk you through what your bank or tax office requires you to show and what IRD or SAT position sits behind the question – and what to put on paper before the deadline closes.
Let’s talk →Your Hong Kong accountant won’t take on the offshore claim.
They quote you the PTR fee and quietly walk away when you ask about the offshore exemption. Many HK accountants don’t work with it – it’s a complicated documentation process with a 60–70% approval rate, and it requires real preparation and brainwork. Some would rather paper over it with shortcuts that create audit risk.
First we’ll tell you whether the offshore claim is right for your business at all and what documentation you need – then we run the questionnaire response when it lands.
Let’s talk →You need the China VAT export refund to land in your account.
The VAT refund on Chinese exports – up to 13% – is law. Getting it out of the tax bureau is operations. The bureau wants a real WFOE with a real office and staff. Fapiao that match HS codes that match customs declarations that match your business scope. A tax officer who has seen your operations before. There is no shortcut around any of it.
We’ll tell you what substance your specific export profile needs and what the bureau timeline looks like for businesses like yours – then how to set up operations so the refund cycles cleanly year after year.
Let’s talk →
Hong Kong tax system, deductions, and offshore status
Profits Tax tiers, what counts as taxable profit, deductible expenses, and the full offshore-claim process – with the trade-offs named.
How the China export VAT refund works – and who gets it
How to buy with proper fapiao, what the customs declaration has to match, the bureau timeline, and the practical filter on who collects the refund.
From the founder
Tax isn’t about filing forms.
In ten years building businesses between Hong Kong, China, and Singapore – both my own and those of our clients – I personally walked bank after bank with my complex Russian passport and worked out the documentation discipline needed to run long-term. And I figured out how to present a structure so accounts get opened and the tax authority doesn’t get triggered.
Tax for founders like ours isn’t about filing forms. The forms are the easy part. The judgment is the hard part – whether to file the offshore claim at all, and whether your company has the substance to defend its position before the tax authority and the banks. Sometimes the question is whether to set up the company at all, and if so where.
Most accounting firms file what you give them. They don’t have the experience of running real cross-border business themselves – the kind that lets you tell a client where the theory meets reality. They’re citizens of HK, SG, Europe, or China – they haven’t lived the experience of being high-risk by default just because of their passport. And in the big international firms, the depth of any individual manager’s expertise and practical experience runs even thinner.
When you work with USG, you don’t get narrow accountant advice. I personally lead the strategic call when you come in, and you have direct access to me when the call is non-trivial. Our team is backed by ten years of operational cross-border practice, and powered by our internal knowledge engine – a system that consolidates years of experience and research.
It’s that experience and knowledge, the system, and the founder personally in the call that let us give higher-quality recommendations – and take responsibility for putting them in place.
Book a free 30-minute call.
You walk us through your case. We’ll tell you what’s worth doing, what isn’t, and what it’ll cost – before you commit to anything.
Book a free 30-min call →