Some of our Brazilian customers/suppliers indicate it is especially difficult or prohibitive to send and receive money from abroad.
I'd like to facilitate the process of receiving customer remittances and paying our vendors without formally setting up shop there.
Does anyone in the community have any tips or information that could otherwise help?
Kind Regards,
Ken Stumder
Ken,
Unfortunately what you are proposing is exactly what created the currency controls in the first place. Getting money into Brazil is not the issue. Getting money out for legitimate, documented expenses is also not the issue. That is done once the proper documentation has been presented to the Central Bank, and before the FX trade is entered into. What you should be focusing in is what can you do to minimize the taxes associated when conducting business there.
In the past, working as a
Thanks Mark & Linda. So it appears that if a company wants to do trade in Brazil (whether significant or not) it must set up shop formally?
As a matter or clarification I did not see Mark or Linda recommend sitting up shop there. If you mean establishing a legal presence in Brazil that is not something you want to do unless you have a compelling reason. The point is to provide the proper documentation and try and minimize the
Ken: Transfer & receiving funds into & out of Brazil will require a bit of start-up work as the central bank (BACEN) is the dominant bureaucracy. I recommend you have a conversation with any of the major international banks that have a dual presence in Brazil & the US. (JPMorgan, Citi, Deutsche Bank, etc). Although these articles are a bit dated & germaine to investors, you can get an idea of the "difficulties" your customers & suppliers are referring to for normal business transactions in the rest of the world.
As a former Controller for an international bank with investors who did business in Brazil, I can confirm that you should seek good advice from a banking partner who has a presence in this country today.
http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Brazil/Local%20Assets/Documents/Exchange%20Control%20and%20Foreign%20Investment.pdf
http://www.gtnews.com/article/6306.cfm
