Australian Money Forum

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I'm sure there are many who would be able to answer this question for me, but I have as yet been unable to find an appropriate answer online and I was hoping to know a little bit more about this before bringing the topic up with my accountant.

I am the MD of an Australian company which provides a service to generate income. I will soon be paying individuals in the USA to perform this service on my company's account (trained by us here in Australia).

So what will happen in the USA is, new customer will pay us $4000, then we pay our USA representative $2000 complete a service. This leaves us with a surplus of $2000. Under normal circumstances, the USA customer would wire money to our Australian bank account and we would need to declare it legally, then we would wire money to our USA representative. However what actually happens if we have the customer wire money to a foreign bank account instead?

Since I am not an American citizen, and my USA representative is paid through legal channels including paper trail (and hence liable to pay his portion of US tax), and my money does not enter an Australian bank (or Australian shores), who would there be to expect me to pay tax for money earned? (This is assuming the country where the money is invested does not require me to pay tax).