Expanding to the US — setup checklist
The order of operations for a first US presence, so obligations are not created before they are needed.
- 15+Years of cross-border experience
- 18,000+Clients served
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- 4Global offices — India, USA, Canada & UAE
The order of operations for a first US presence, so obligations are not created before they are needed.
The document pack
- A written description of what will actually happen in the United States, and by whom
- A decision on entity form, with the classification consequences in both countries
- The federal identifier application, allowing for the non-resident route
- A list of states where employees, inventory or sales volume will exist
- Sales tax registration analysis by state, tested against each state's own rules
- Payroll registration where employees will work, by state
- Intercompany agreements for anything the parent will charge
- A filing calendar naming an owner for each return
Why each of these is asked for
Most of the cost of a US expansion comes from doing these in the wrong order — opening a payroll account before deciding whether there is a taxable presence, or incorporating before testing the classification. The state list is the item most often underestimated: a single remote employee can register the company for three different taxes.
Where to go from here
Send what you have and we will tell you what is missing. A complete pack is usually the difference between a filing that takes a fortnight and one that takes a season. We will tell you if you do not need us. That happens more often than you would expect.
Reviewed for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, Cross-Border Tax Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. Written as general guidance, not as a recommendation for your situation. Talk it through with us before acting on it.
US international tax, in practice
Read this page for US international tax. It works through expanding to the US from the beginning — whether it applies to you at all, what has to be filed if it does, and what the engagement costs, priced up front.
Why clients bring expanding to the US — setup checklist to us
We say early if it is not our work
If a file needs something this practice does not do, you hear that at the start rather than after a bill.
Cross-border is the whole practice
International and cross-border tax is all we do — not a sideline next to domestic work. The edge cases on this page are our ordinary Tuesday.
The reporting penalties get named early
The heaviest exposure on a cross-border file is usually a disclosure form, not the tax. We identify which ones apply before a deadline turns into a penalty.
18,000+ clients served
Individuals, expats and corporations across India, the USA, Canada and the UAE have filed with us — 15+ years of cross-border work.
Files that look like this one
Payroll accounts opened before anyone tested the taxable presence
A group hired its first person in the United States and registered for payroll in that state straight away, on the reasonable view that an employee means payroll. Nobody had yet asked whether the activity created a taxable presence, and it did — in that state and federally, with filings that followed from the registration itself. We established the position, brought the resulting returns up to date, and set the structure on a footing the group had chosen deliberately. The engagement produced a documented presence analysis and a filing calendar built from it.
Choosing an entity form after testing it in both countries
A parent came to us with the entity form already chosen on the advice of its US counsel, who had looked at the question entirely from the US side. Read from the parent's country, the same structure produced income taxed in hands that could not use the credit for the tax already paid. We modelled the alternatives in both systems before anything was incorporated. The engagement produced a written comparison of the forms and a decision the group made with both consequences in front of it rather than one.
Inventory in a warehouse that created a state registration
A manufacturer moved stock into a third-party fulfilment warehouse to shorten delivery times, treating it as a logistics decision. Goods stored in a state are a presence in that state, and the registration obligations followed from the day the pallets arrived rather than from the first sale. We identified the affected states, registered where registration was due, and dealt with the period that had already run. The engagement produced a state-by-state position tied to where stock physically sits, and a rule for reviewing it before any new warehouse is used.
Sales into states nobody had reviewed
A direct-to-consumer seller had grown steadily across the country without ever testing its position state by state, on the understanding that having no offices meant having no obligations. Several states' own rules had been met on sales volume alone. We ran the analysis against each state's tests, registered where the obligation had arisen, and quantified and resolved the exposure in the states where it had been running longest. The engagement produced a registration schedule with a filing frequency for each account and a threshold review the company now runs annually.
Intercompany charges made without a written agreement
A parent had been charging its US subsidiary a management fee since the subsidiary was formed. The fee was calculated consistently and was commercially sensible, but there was no agreement behind it and no analysis of how the figure had been arrived at. We documented the services actually provided, set the pricing on a supportable basis, and put an agreement in place going forward. The engagement produced signed intercompany documentation and a written basis for the charge that both countries could be shown.
A filing calendar built before the first US hire
A group about to place staff in the United States asked for the compliance position in advance rather than after the fact. We started from a written description of what would happen there and who would do it, settled the entity form against it, sequenced the federal identifier application to allow for the non-resident route, and listed the states where people, stock and sales would exist. The engagement produced a filing calendar naming an owner for every return before the first employee started, which is the cheapest point at which to build one.
A Family Trust Abroad With Reporting on Both Sides
A trust settled in one country and a beneficiary living in another produces reporting for the trust, the settlor and the beneficiary, on different forms and different dates. The engagement maps who files what before anything is prepared.
Read how this one runsOne Salary, Two Countries Claiming It
A US citizen resident in Canada, taxed in full on both sides because each return was prepared without the other in view. Deciding which country has the first right to the income, then claiming relief on the second return in the right order, is what stops the same dollar being taxed twice.
Read how this one runsAll case studies — every published engagement in one place.
Core International & Cross-Border Tax Services
International Tax Planning & Advisory
Strategy and compliance for income, assets and families spread across borders.
U.S. & Cross-Border Tax Returns
Expat & Emigration Tax
Non-Resident Canadian Tax
Transfer Pricing & BEPS
Tax Treaties & Withholding
Cross-Border Estates & Trusts
Global Investments & Reporting
Cross-Border Corporate Tax
India Tax for NRIs & Returning Residents
Canadian Tax with a Foreign Element
UAE Tax for Expats & Their Home Country
Industries & Client Types We Serve Worldwide
Global E-commerce & Marketplaces
- Foreign VAT / GST / sales tax registrations
- Marketplace withholding reviews
- Inventory nexus & PE analysis
- Multi-currency books reconciled
Technology & SaaS
- Cross-border revenue sourcing & withholding
- IP structuring with real substance
- Equity for cross-border teams
- U.S. expansion: entity & PE setup
Professional Services Firms
- Reg 105 / 102 waivers
- Permanent establishment risk
- Partner mobility planning
- Cross-border withholding recovery
Cross-Border Real Estate
- Section 216 rental returns
- FIRPTA withholding recovery
- Section 116 clearance
- Treaty credit optimization
Importers, Exporters & Manufacturers
- Transfer pricing documentation (s.247)
- Customs value vs transfer price
- Foreign affiliate reporting (T1134)
- Country-by-country reporting
Athletes, Artists & Entertainers
- Reg 105 & U.S. CWA agreements
- Multi-state & country calendars
- Touring income allocation
- Royalty & image-rights withholding
Remote Workers & Digital Nomads
- Residency analysis before moving
- Employer payroll exposure
- Totalization & social security
- Foreign tax credits
Investment Funds & Holding Companies
Holding structures live or die on treaty access, beneficial ownership and substance — the MLI's principal-purpose test now sits over every arrangement.
A holding structure is only as good as its reporting. Foreign affiliates, accrued passive income and distributions each carry their own return, and the penalties on those attach to the form rather than to any tax being owed — so a structure that saves tax can still cost money if the information returns are late.
- Treaty access & PPT reviews
- FAPI & surplus computations
- Withholding-efficient routing
- Governance & substance
