I own a business here in Canada which I have been running for 12 years. We make belts in Canada and sell them internationally, mostly in the USA. I recently started selling on Amazon.com and have just found out that the only way they are able to pay me is by transferring money to a US account. I thought it would be fine to do this through our US-dollar bank account which we have here in Canada, but they informed me that it has to be done via a US account that is physically in USA. I have found out that I can open up a personal checking account in USA (in US dollars) no problem and this would work out just fine. My question to you is, since all of my sales are done from Canada, if I open this account and have Amazon.com transfer funds to this account, and then transfer the money to my business account here in Canada (which I will be taxed on in Canada), is that legal in the eyes of the US government? I don’t want to get into trouble down the road ?????? having the US government thinking that I am earning income in the USA. I am just simply transferring money from the US bank account in the USA to my account in Canada. In other words.. This is the only way I can get paid by Amazon! Another option would be for me to register my business in USA and then open up a US account, but that is a lot of expense just for the sake of getting paid by Amazon! I really don’t want to do that, especially since my sales on Amazon are not that high. And, I won’t be running my business from the USA. The money is sitting the the Amazon.com account and I am doing research to see how I can best transfer it to my Canadian account. help!
Dear Ren,
In order for a U.S. bank to open a business account for you in the U.S. you need to have a business registered in the U.S.
One option is to open a company in the U.S. (such as an LLC) in a state with minimum formalities and cost (such as Delaware, Wyoming or New Mexico). You would then travel to the U.S. with the company documents and open a bank account (read more about opening a bank account in the U.S.)
Another option is to register your Canadian company as a foreign entity in the U.S. You would still need to pick a state where you would register the company, and usually this process is a bit more complicated, as your Canadian company documents would need to be certified in the U.S. embassy, since Canada is not a signatory of Apostlle Convention.
With that being said, it is possible that a bank would accept EIN letter as the only document, or even accept your Canadian documents without certification, but I wouldn’t count on it (check with the bank though).
We can help you with both courses of action, however you need to decide on which one you want to go with.
(a) You made a typo in the card number, CCV code, expiration date, name or address;
(b) Your card balance is too low;
(c) Issuing bank has declined this transaction for some other reason related to your account.
