NCI Law can register Swiss companies for clients as part of corporate structuring and tax planning.
There are five main variants of the Swiss Stock Corporation:
Domiciliary company : domiciliary stock corporations are companies that have a registered office in Switzerland
but are foreign-controlled, carry out all of their business abroad, have no staff in Switzerland and receive
only foreign source income; the use of this type of companies can result in savings on both income tax and
capital gain tax as well as net worth tax.
Holding company : a holding company is a stock corporation with a particular tax status, benefitting from
reductions in income tax, on capital gain at federal and cantonal levels, and on net worth tax; a company
limited by shares is defined as a holding company if it holds at least 20% of the share capital of another
company or if the value of its shareholding in another company has a value of at least 2 millions Swiss
Francs.
Service company : the activity of this type of company is the provision of technical, management, marketing,
financial and administrative services to foreign companies which belong to the same group of which the limited
company is a member; this type of limited company can avail itself of interesting tax deductions by means of
an advance tax ruling.
Auxiliary company : it is basically a domiciliary company which carry out a certain part of its business in
Switzerland; tax reductions varies depending on the canton, but auxiliaries companies may have Swiss
offices and personnel and generate Swiss income, though the major part of the income must be of foreign
source.
Mixed company : a mixed company has at the same time the characteristics of a domiciliary company and of
a holding company; the use of this type of company may result in tax savings at cantonal and communal
levels if it is foreign controlled, if at lest 80% of its total revenue comes from foreign sources.
Characteristics of a Swiss stock corporation:
- Minimum share capital: CHF 100'000.- ;
- Minimum number of subscribers: 3 ;
- Bearer shares: permitted ;
- Nominee shareholders : permitted ;
- Minimum number of directors: 1 ;
- Fiduciary directors: permitted ;
- Company must have an auditor.