TomR77

Hi,

I just want to start by saying this is a great forum, and thank you to those who take the time to answer questions.

Anyway, I'm a British citizen, living in the U.K. I have always wanted to live and work in the USA. I run several (very small) businesses and I am considering the L1 visa route.

As a businessman, I have the usual gripes about the U.K. - taxes and employment laws that hinder growth, a restrictive regulatory environment, poor infrastructure, and so on, but in a nutshell, I've always been a self-starter/entrepreneurial person, don't like the monarchy/class system in Britain, the casual alcoholism and the 'dependency culture' attitudes, the anti-social behaviour...in short – I've had enough, I think my self-employed status may offer a pretext to emigrate, and so I want to seize my chance and get out of here.

Are there any views on which are the more business-friendly geographic areas of the USA? I'm referring to state, region or metropolis, and I'm looking at this from the perspective of a small business owner or self-employed person (say, up to about 10 employees, and up to around $300k t/o). My main concerns are tax codes, ease of incorporation, health & safety impositions, and labour flexibility.

I know it's a sweeping question, but as this is an ex-pat forum, I would just value your impressions and experiences, no matter how anecdotal, especially if you have significant work/life experience of more than one part of the USA. I realise this is no substitute for my own detailed and careful research into legal and regulatory requirements and tax rates, and so forth, which I will undertake.

My business fields in the U.K. are:-

- legal practice (I am already familiar with bar admission requirements and realise I may have little choice but to look at New York state, due to reciprocity);
- business/I.P. consultancy;
- property management (I realise some states may have licensing requirements in this field).

My personal preference would, in fact, be New York, but I am not sure how 'friendly' it is for small business owners. I would like to leave the U.K. for good and never go back. Ever. I would treat the L1 visa as a long-term immigration opportunity, and I would seek to become a U.S. citizen as soon as decently possible.

Thanks for reading – but especially if you can offer some constructive comment.

md95065

Not California

In general it seems to me that businesses in the US are often vastly over regulated when it comes to petty restrictions that don't really matter but which make work (and money) for the various licensing and regulatory authorities while being under regulated when it comes to important things ...

One problem of course, is that you will have to deal with the intersection of Federal, State and local regulations.

Good luck!

snowbunny

Texas, if you want a lot of freedom on how to treat your employees.

We have had a lot of new jobs while the rest of the country loses them.

Not that I agree with the lack of worker protection.

Rete

Assuming you mean NYC when you say New York and not just someplace in the State of New York.

NYC has many small law firms of two or three partners/associates or one person offices. Do they do well? Don't have a clue. Most of the larger law firms are responsible for handling the Business/Corporate/Finance clients as well as the Intellectual Property cases.

Who do you work for now as an attorney in London? A large firm? One that is often used by US law firms for handling the UK law portion of cases?

Personally most of the successful law firms that I know of that are considered "small" are located on Long Island.

Not sure if you need a real estate license to be a property manager. Our residence has property managers for tenants and another for co-op owners and now of them are licenses real estate agents.

Don't know if this helps or not.

ldyinlv

There is no state tax, or corporate tax in Nevada.

scrubbedexpat099

Stick with the red states would be a reasonable generalisation.

Not sure about the L. Small business is an issue, very small most unlikely. How are you going to keep them going?

Bob

If that's your reason, you wouldn't want to be moving to the US then.

As for region, well depends exactly what you do...IP stuff would probably be pretty healthy work in Boston but if you can't practice, which you probably couldn't, it might make it a moot point, though maybe you could be a "consultant"...which to my mind is a little dodgy, but anyway.

Bloomin' expensive though and medical insurance isn't fun for a business owner.

Tax codes, well there's a reason Delaware is very popular, don't even need to be based there, can use a service that you pay to have someone be a paper director of the company. Also has advantages if you try and flog the company.

TomR77

Well, thanks to you all.

Boiler - I agree that the L route could prompt questions about management, especially at the first year renewal point, and I suspect the first year renewal would, if anything, be my downfall, rather than the initial application. Unfortunately, as I'm keen on self-employment and don't want to be employed by anyone else, and as my intention is to go for the Green Card, realistically I'm not sure I have any other visa options - though, if you beg to differ, I'm all ears, so to say. I'm single, no family. I'm not someone of 'extraordinary ability'.

Having searched the forum, it's apparent that people have been generally successful with L-applications, despite owning fairly small businesses. Whether they generally meet with success at first renewal is, of course, another matter. What I may do is try to see if I can dig up any statistics on failure rates at first renewal of L1 visas.

Bob - yes, healthcare is a major concern, especially being accustomed to the NHS. Unfortunately, I would have a pre-existing condition to declare, as I tend to suffer from infections. It is always a medical emergency, so ministration of treatment is covered by EMTALA, but I would expect to have to pay for the costs (usually no more than one or two nights in hospital, if that).

I've done some research on the financial commitment for healthcare, and it appears that while taxes in the US tend to be lower than the UK, once you factor in the medical premiums and 401k, take-home pay is about the same as the UK. Would you say that's a fair summation, in general? Generally speaking, would healthcare premiums and co-payments be expected to be significantly higher for a small business owner? (Again, I realise it's a sweeping question). Are there financial benefits in arranging healthcare through the U.S. company, rather than individually?

Duncan Roberts

In general, very much so. If you have a business and are employing people, i t would be expected that you would negotiate a group rate with an insurance company (usually via a broker) and subsidize your employees premiums. There is no rule about if you should or how much but it's tough to get qualified people if you don't offer benefits or benefits that are too expensive. For a 10 person firm you may end up paying an extra $5000 a month on top of your premiums. A group policy will generally be cheaper than an individual policy and generally pre-existing conditions don't really matter if you have other creditable coverage immediately before, like the NHS.

TomR77

Thanks Duncan - that's very useful information.

Just going back to the technical visa question, one viable alternative to the L-route did occur to me, but I quickly dismissed it. I could establish a US business remotely from the UK, perhaps a branch of my law practice after passing the relevant local bar exam. With ICT as it is now, this is perfectly feasible from a logistical point-of-view. After a year or so of trading, I would then apply for a permanent EB-1 immigrant visa, on an intra-company manager/executive transfer. This would be on a similar justification to the L-visa, but with the added benefit that a Green Card would be available immediately.

As already stated, I dismissed this as too risky. I don't know how thorough they are, but I would have thought USCIS would discount the US side of the business as a sham structure, on the basis that it is simply an adjunct to the UK business, rather than a separate and viable branch office, if you see what I mean.

A variant of this option could be that instead of applying for the EB-1, I would apply for a three-year L1 on the basis that I have an 'office' and client base in the US - has anyone tried anything like this, or any thoughts?

meauxna

Your immigration questions should be posted in the Immigration forum for discussion please.
There are a few threads on your topic running in there that you might want to read too.

Bob

Pretty good summary...as for cost, as a business it'll be better than getting it on a personal level, for a start it's a business expense and as a group rate you'll get a better rate that you as the employee can take part in as opposed to you get it out on your own. Also depending on the state, you may have to get it as a business if you have over x number of people, usually around 10 I think, but that depends on the state.

Something to look into would be any local business association or chamber of commerce groups that you could join, or even any trade associations and the like that could get a group business rate, that should help a lot with costs, but that would depend on the town/county you're in.

TomR77

Thanks Bob and meauxna.

I'll re-post my immigration question to the relevant forum,.

Thanks again to everyone who replied, and I hope the information provided also helps/assists others.

TomR77

By the way, in case there are other business owners/entrepreneurs out there with a similar query on the business-friendliness of the relevant jurisdictions in the USA, I also found this:-

http://www.businessfriendlyusa.com/

Unfortunately, my preferred choice, New York, is 44th. this year. Never mind.

meauxna

Aw, just find another website. How serious can they be with that comic sans font anyway?

Just reviewing your opening post.. most of your four criteria are covered by federal law & will be the same everywhere. Everything but tax.
It might help you help yourself if you decide what your definition of 'business friendly' includes.
For ex, I keep reading in my local press that Oregon obviously hates business, based on what we do here politically, but I see that Forbes thinks very highly of us.