I’m curious to see how others deal with things when you setup your company or business. I’m yet again looking at moving country and having to face setting everything up again which quite honestly brings on stress and anxiety.
When you setup did you tell your bank that you do porn or do you lie? What about accountants or tax office?
I only ever told an employee who worked at the local bank office, but only because I knew him well on a personal level.
Other than that I have never mentioned porn to my bank, tax office or chamber of commerce. I tell them I do affiliate marketing, which is not a lie.
Good luck with setting things up again. It brings on stress anyway… even without telling services about your business. Which country are you planning to move to (if you don’t mind sharing)?
Yeah it’s what I’ve done in the past too. However Sweden was easier to do because I found a “sympathetic” accountant and my sister in-law works at the bank.
I’m thinking of moving to Denmark now from Spain. It’s just safer, higher living standards, more organised, better pension, social welfare… the downside is the weather obviously!
I do “community and other websites with affiliate marketing in the entertainment business”.
Despite the colder weather, Denmark is definitely a great choice in the long run. Even though Danes are pretty liberal / progressive, I would still describe your company’s activities in a more general way 
Once a bank closed my account after “someone” found out my money was wired from a porn company, PornHub.
I did not hide it when opened the account. I said clearly, ADULT ENTERTAIMENT.
After the incident I went to 3 different banks and all say NO WAY IN. The number 4th opened the account and is the one I am using now. That is in my home country. Now I am living in South America and I when I mentioned the bank here, looking to have a bank account, THE LADY told me; “well, it is money”. Been with them since last year. At the end all of them make money with porn.
I have a couple business accounts in the US. We always say we are a “web technology and marketing” company which is not a lie. We set up our Webmediaproz.com website which looks generic enough if they check. I’ve never had a problem setting up a bank account going this route, though I’m sure if they looked deeply enough they could find it is associated with porn. So far they’ve never asked and I’m getting offers all the time for business loans and such so they obviously like our business lol.
I’ve just said that I do marketing and web design.
I can only recall one time that I had a problem with a (new) clerk saying my check was fake and wouldn’t deposit it. (Check was from Pimproll and didn’t say anything about what it was for and didn’t show the website name, just their company generic name).
That got corrected in a hurry when I contacted the main office and explained that was how I get paid for my online work and that I’d had no issues in the past. Told them if there was a problem all they had to do was put a hold on the funds until the check cleared.
Now that I think about it … I haven’t seen that particular clerk since…
1 word answer when asked - e-commerce
Our company bank reps know. Our CPA knows. My personal CPA knows. My personal bank rep used to know, but not sure the current ones do after the past one retired some years ago.
My accountant knows, but we do affiliate marketing as far as the bank is concerned.
Hopefully the move should be fine, Denmark after all was the first country to legalize gay sex in 1933 and porn in 1967. I’ll still be careful with what I say though, old habits (or fear) die hard. Just not looking forward to the extremely high taxes.
I have always just said its commision payments, no questions ever asked by the bank, and I do my own tax return.
Affiliate marketing.
Most bankers and accountants don’t even know what that is, so by the time I explain how affiliate programs work they are just impressed that someone can make a living at it, lol.
All the money arrives from faceless corporate accounts, PayPal anyway - they don’t care.
My accountant tracks the subcontractor and expense payments. He doesn’t want to know exactly what they do every day.
I prefer to say I run a marketing company and that it’s money from internet’s commissions which it’s true.
As already mentioned, I’d say “Online marketing, sales and services”. I’d never volunteer any specific information.
I used to do my banking at a credit union for ACH deposits from some affiliate programs and I had to close the account and get a new account number for security reasons. It was a real small branch of the credit union that I went in to make the changes. They had just a few cubicles in the middle of everything, not really any privacy at all. The credit union employee told me and my husband to make sure that I updated my direct deposit information with “Raging Stalliion”, which is how one payment used to show up years and years ago, I think it was Gunz Blazing. She said it real loud and it was like she said it in slow motion. We laughed the whole ride home. We still say it sometime as an inside joke when we go to the bank. Never had any problem with any bank yet, I always just say we do web design.