Marketplace → Tax & Structure → Verification
Amazon Kept Your U.S. Tax Exposure Simple.
TikTok Shop U.S. Does Not.
TikTok Shop U.S. needs two U.S. persons: a U.S. Business Representative, and a U.S. structure that meets the W-9 requirement. Both are critical, and both take planning to get right and to stay right once your shop is running.
See What Has to Be Decided First ↓
Already know your structure and have a U.S. tax professional? Skip to Verified Path →
Since 1997 · 7,000+ foreign and U.S. founders served · 60+ countries · Written deliverables in 3 to 5 business days
1 · Marketplace
Where are you now, and where are you going next?
Amazon · TikTok Shop · Shopify · Walmart · DTC and wholesale. What is working today, and what the new channel will demand.
2 · Tax & Structure
What does that do to what you owe?
Foreign company or U.S. entity, ownership, tax classification, U.S. filings, home-country impact, and how profit moves.
3 · Verification
Can it open, get paid, and stay open?
Tax interview, EIN records, address posture, banking, the U.S. representative, and the submission sequence.
The marketplace decision is the easy one. The middle layer is where the money is, and it is the one nobody owns.
Which of those three is unsettled decides where you start.
Where should you start?
Start With What Is Still Undecided
Enter at the level your situation requires. Most brands buy one of these, not all of them. Pick the lane that matches what your team has already solved.
Most brands adding TikTok Shop start with the Expansion Blueprint. The Decision Review is for one move that does not require designing the whole structure.
You do not have to be certain. You have to be sure enough to take one correct first step.
Most people arrive here trying to price this against a tax consult, a legal review, or an agency onboarding. It is none of those, which is why the comparison keeps not working.
Scott leads every engagement personally. We accept a limited number of new Blueprints each month.
Need tax clarity
Decision Review
$1,250
“We have one move in front of us and we need to know what it touches before we commit.”
✓ Where you stand today, in writing
✓ What the move ahead touches, part by part
✓ Which professional fits your facts and risk profile
✓ Which returns and accounting you will actually need
✓ Two 30-minute sessions with Scott, review delivered in 3 business days
✓ 14 days of email follow-up, up to 3 questions
Most chosen
Need the architecture
Expansion Blueprint
$2,500
“Amazon is already working. TikTok is next. We want the whole structure mapped before we change what works.”
✓ Every viable structure compared against your facts, with the recommendation
✓ Your Cross-Border Map marked to your situation, green, yellow, or red
✓ What you do first, second, and third, with dates
✓ Written review so your CPA and attorney start from your facts
✓ Two sessions with Scott, Blueprint delivered in 5 business days
✓ 30 days of written clarification after delivery
Need to untangle first
Strategic Blueprint
From $4,997
“We already have entities, filings, or money moving between companies that may need fixing first.”
✓ Everything in the Expansion Blueprint
✓ Current state mapped, and what each existing piece commits you to
✓ Remediation sequenced by deadline and consequence
✓ Risks ranked by dollar exposure
✓ The positions available on your facts, the professional each requires, and the fee tier
✓ Your third session can bring in a specialist, with Scott on the call framing the facts. Specialist fees are billed separately by the specialist
✓ Three sessions with Scott, delivery timeline set in writing at kickoff
✓ 60 days of written clarification and coordination
Already decided · ready to implement
Verified Path · $2,497
“Our structure is decided and our advisors are handling the tax side. We need help implementing it and getting through TikTok Shop.”
Do not pay for another planning engagement if the important decisions are already made.
Verified Path assumes your structure and tax lane are already decided. If they are not, start with a Blueprint. Blueprint and Verified Path together: $4,497.
More than one sounds like you? Take the higher one. Have one move in front of you and need to know what it touches first? That is the Decision Review.
Why established brands buy the Blueprint
You Probably Already Know the Easy Part.
You may already have this handled. If you do, the list on the right will read as obvious and you can skip the rest of this page.
The value is not learning that TikTok Shop needs a U.S. tax lane. The value is deciding what that one requirement should change across the business you already built.
You probably already know
TikTok Shop U.S. wants a W-9. Amazon does not. A foreign entity can sell there on a W-8BEN-E, and the two platforms do not want the same thing.
A U.S. Business Representative is required. Who fills that role, and what they can access, are decisions with consequences.
U.S. inventory usually means U.S. tax responsibilities, foreign owner or not.
The marketplaces collect sales tax in most states, though the coverage is not complete and it does not reach every tax.
Your home-country accountant does not file U.S. returns, and your U.S. preparer does not file home-country ones. Each side stops at the border.
Approval is not permanent. TikTok Shop and Amazon re-verify, and what passed the first time is tested again.
Someone eventually prepares the U.S. returns.
What is still undecided
Which company sells? Your foreign company, a new U.S. one, or both split by channel.
Does Amazon stay where it is? Do not move what already works without a reason.
Will the accounts open, and stay open? Verification, the representative, and what happens at re-verification.
Will you get paid, and stay paid? Payout holds, and how profit reaches you at home.
What do you owe in the U.S.? Trade or business, which returns, and the state exposure inventory creates.
What do you owe at home? How your country treats the U.S. company, and whether a treaty helps.
What gets an approved account shut down? Access, logins, and role changes close more accounts than the original application ever did.
What happens when Walmart or Shopify comes next? Today’s fix should not become next year’s restructuring.
What does a buyer find in three years? The structure you put in now is the one that shows up in diligence. Cleaning it up under someone else’s deadline costs more than building it right.
The Expansion Blueprint exists for exactly this. Not to tell you TikTok Shop needs a W-9, but to determine what the whole U.S. expansion should look like once that requirement changes the business you already built.
What one move actually touches
It Is Never One Question.
A single decision usually has five or six parts, and the parts are where the money is.
“I am adding Shopify DTC to my Amazon business, selling through my foreign entity. What changes in the U.S.?”
1. Whether the foreign entity still works as the seller once DTC is in the mix
2. What Shopify Payments will require, and whether that presence is something you can honestly document
3. Sales tax, where the marketplace collected for you on Amazon and where DTC leaves you collecting yourself
4. State income, franchise, and gross receipts exposure, a separate layer no treaty touches
5. Whether your fulfillment model changes your federal position
6. Whether any of it disturbs the tax position you already hold at home
One move. Six parts. That is a Decision Review. If more than one channel is in scope, or something already built could be affected, that is the Expansion Blueprint.
The Verified Expansion Map
Five Decisions. One Story That Has to Hold.
Where two of them meet is where applications fail, payouts freeze, and the
same profit may get taxed twice.
Your CPA owns one circle. Your attorney owns one. Nobody owns the overlaps.
That is the Blueprint’s job.
The Verified Expansion Map: five decisions, and the risk that sits where each pair overlaps.
The overlaps are where every stuck application, frozen payout, and surprise tax bill on this page began. The CEO Blueprint is the written plan where all five decisions agree, in the right order, before you file or apply for anything.
The framework behind every Blueprint
The Cross-Border Expansion Map
Sixteen decisions across three zones. Your Blueprint marks your own path through the full map, green, yellow, or red.
Your U.S. filings
Entity return · owner return · Form 5472 · treaty disclosure · state returns
▶
Do these two tell the same story?
Your CPA prepares the left side. Your home-country accountant prepares the right. The Blueprint is the document that makes them agree before either one files.
Your home-country filings
Company return · personal return · foreign income disclosure · credit claim
◀
The master map is included with the Expansion and Strategic Blueprints. Your own position marked on it, green, yellow, or red, is part of what you receive.
Planning and implementation are different jobs
Your U.S. Expansion Happens in Three Phases
01
Map
CEO Blueprint
Determine what should be built, what stays untouched, and what must happen in what order.
02
Validate
CPA, attorney, specialist
Your Blueprint contains the exact questions that require licensed professional validation.
03
Implement
Verified Path
Once the structure is approved, NCP executes the implementation work within our scope.
You own your Blueprint. Use your existing professional team, or let us coordinate the people and the implementation required to execute it.
What this looks like in practice
Amazon Works. TikTok Is Next.
Came in with
A foreign-owned brand doing roughly $3M on Amazon through the foreign company. No U.S. CPA. TikTok Shop next.
Already knew
They needed a U.S. tax structure TikTok Shop would accept.
Did not know
Corporation or partnership
Who should own the U.S. company
Whether Amazon should move at all
How profit returns home
What the U.S. filing burden becomes
Whether transfer pricing applies
How Shopify fits in later
Which professional validates which decision
The Blueprint
Scott mapped the viable paths against their facts, recommended one, sequenced it with dates, and prepared the written questions for the CPA and the home-country accountant.
CPA validates the tax position.
↓
Verified Path implements the approved structure.
A year from now, the part you will be glad you settled first is rarely the part you were worried about on the day you started.
Composite example built from real engagements. Details are combined and anonymized to protect client confidentiality.
Meet your expansion architect
U.S. Expansion Architect for Cross-Border Ecommerce Brands
Since 1997 Scott has worked with business owners across every stage of entity formation, structuring, and compliance, with over 7,000 filings completed. Today he specializes in helping non-U.S. ecommerce brands expand into the U.S. market through Verified Expansion by NCP: the right entity, tax structure, banking, and marketplace verification, so Amazon, TikTok Shop, Shopify, the banks, and the IRS all read the same setup the same way.
His clients include cross-border brand owners, licensees planning U.S. launches, and advisory firms (CPAs, VAT firms, law firms) who need a U.S. expansion specialist for their international clients.
Scott does not give tax or legal advice. He leads a formation and verification team, spots the risk flags, and coordinates with your licensed advisors before anything is filed. If you do not have a CPA, he connects you with independent professionals matched to your fact pattern.
Credentials and affiliations
MainStreet Certified Tax Advisor® 2023-2025
IRS Enrolled Agent, in progress
Amazon Service Provider Network, listed provider
Shopify Partner
CPA and attorney referral network, independent professionals
Since 1997 · 7,000+ filings · 60+ countries · MSCTA®
“Confidence and confirmation are not the same thing.”
AI can tell you what the rules say. It cannot tell you what actually gets rejected. We know because we see the rejections.
What Founders Say
★★★★★
“Scott goes above and beyond and has been an invaluable source of expertise for a UK brand looking to grow into the US, spanning tax, operations, and business strategy. He thinks of pitfalls and solves them before you even realise they exist.”
Joe Hayward · Non-resident seller (UK)
★★★★★
“He asked first-principle questions, uncovered my real goals, and turned months of confusion into a clear, actionable plan.”
Jonny Lee · Amazon brand
★★★★★
“Scott has in-depth knowledge of US taxation. His advice gave me a clearer picture of my options for company structure and tax.”
Raffles Ikon · Non-resident seller
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a CEO Blueprint before Verified Path?
No. If your entity and tax structure are already decided and professionally reviewed, go straight to Verified Path. We would rather point you at the right one.
When should I start with the $1,250 Decision Review?
When you have one move in front of you and need to know what it touches before you commit. It covers where you stand, the parts of that move, which professional fits your facts and risk profile, and which returns and accounting you will need, with 14 days of written follow-up afterward. It does not design your full structure. That is the Blueprint.
Who should buy the $2,500 Expansion Blueprint?
Established brands where several reasonable structures exist and the choice affects Amazon, TikTok Shop, tax, ownership, money flow, banking, or the home country.
Who needs Strategic?
Existing entities, prior filings, related-company transactions, treaty or permanent establishment questions, or remediation that must be untangled before anything new is built.
Does Scott provide tax or legal opinions?
No. Scott architects the plan and coordinates the questions. Licensed professionals validate and execute the work that requires their authority.
What happens after the Blueprint?
Use your own team, or move into Verified Path for implementation within our scope. Either way the document is yours.
Tax return preparation, bookkeeping, and accounting are separate engagements, prepared by independent licensed professionals and quoted after your Review or Blueprint, so the quote reflects what you actually need.
Start at the right point
Already Know What to Build? Implement It.
Not Sure? Map It First.
The point is not to buy more consulting. The point is to make the expensive decisions before the expensive implementation begins.
Strategic planning and sequencing only. Scott architects the plan. Licensed specialists validate and execute.
This page is educational and is not legal or tax advice. Scott Letourneau holds the MSCTA® (MainStreet Certified Tax Advisor) credential and is not an attorney or CPA. Verified Expansion is not a law firm or an accounting firm and does not provide legal or tax advice. We coordinate with independent licensed professionals for legal and tax execution.
VERIFIED EXPANSION/by NCP | Since 1997
