Where is the best place to incorporate a investment fund?

This is very much a compliance/tax/future business question. Right now I'm in a small group of four student traders who want to incorporate, to either become a trading group or a small student trading fund, whichever is feasible.

Obviously it is best to setup a business/fund wherever you can get most of your business, but aside from this fact where is the best place to start a fund in terms of tax, compliance, and future business.

Some of the main issue are:

• our group is multi national with 2 Americans, 1 Mainland Chinese, and 1 Vietnamese citizens.
  
• We have small amount of capital, enough for a small portfolio
  
• we are looking either to setup in Hong Kong if its feasible, or the US or UK (we are not sure about these due to political lesgislation risks and higher taxes, though it may be more feasible since we are two american citizens; we are thinking the UK is attractive with spread betting being free), or we are open to other suggestions if it makes more sense.
  
• we are students 3 of us have 1 year of studies left and another has 2 years left
  

We are already contacting the SFC in Hong Kong in getting more information. However, anymore advice or leads to more information would be appreaciated.

-snapman

Hi actually I'm not expert at all on this but I'm interested to see the developments of this thread as well as I may consider incorporate a prop boutique or hedge funds myself in a few years.

The main places I've heard about are : Cayman Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, Ireland. Hong-Kong and Dubai seem tax efficient.

For now, as an individual, I'm benefiting from the British regulation : here in the UK, the financial spread betting is tax free !!!

I've been coresponding with the Hong Kong SFC and will update this thread as more info comes in. In terms of incorporation:

"Cayman Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, Ireland. Hong-Kong and Dubai"

are certainly most places seen. Though Cayman Islands and Bahamas are typical places for fund domiciles but not necessarily incorporation (currently I have a colleague researching this, to figure out why).

Jersey may perhaps be a bit more difficult in terms of providing the range of financial markets to trade, though I haven't double checked on this, which maybe a problem if you wish to trade markets with worldwide exposure.

Unfortunately you have to be a resident to trade tax free UK spread betting :-(