Investing In TLC's With A Foreign Corporation

I'v been researching TLC investing for the past few years and have finally pulled together a good chunk of change to start. As a non-us resident wanting to invest in Tax Lien Certificates, I would have to get a federal tax I.D. number or form a company. Seeing as forming a company is a better choice anyways, I was thinking I would form an IBC in an offshore jurisdiction.
Does anyone have any experience with the paperwork required for a foreign corporation to invest in TLC's?
Any idea's on how much tax a foreign corporation pays to the U.S./state when investing in TLC's?

Looking to invest in Maryland counties with low populations. So anyones experiences with them would be greatly appreciated.

I would think an offshore company would be a read flag.

I have never heard that non-us residents are prohibited from investing in tax lien cert. If you perfected the deed and ended up owning the properties, then you'd have foreign ownership issues.

Offshore entities are becoming more and more of a red flag.

You can use a foreign corp., but I would suggest that you register it in the state where you will be bidding in, which is almost the same as registering a domestic corp.

Several reasons:
1. You will get proper service. If a city wants to demolish the property, by law they need to serve the corporation where it is registered. It is in your own interest to get served in these cases. They need to serve the reg. agent obtainable from the Secy of State.

2. The county will ask you to fill in a W-9 form since they have to report the interest to the IRS. Some counties are lax, but most larger ones will require that. To fill in a W-9 you will need a FEIN or SSN. To get either you have to be registered to do business in the US.

3. Foreign or not you still need to pay taxes on the interest income you derive from your activities in the US unless you want IRS trouble.

If for whatever reason you don't want to bring the funds in the US, you can form a domestic corp and have the US corp borrow from the foreign corp.

Good luck and let us know what you decided and why.