U.S. tax exposure/For established non-US brands
We map where your U.S. activity actually sits, in the rulebook that applies to you.
Then we align your W-8, W-9, and KYC story across your banks and your marketplaces, so the expensive cleanup never starts.
For brands already selling into the U.S., or about to, on Amazon, TikTok Shop, Walmart, or Shopify.
Two rulebooks sit on the table. Most advisors only ever open one of them.
That is the whole question. This book never mentions agents. It applies to every foreign seller, treaty country or not.
This is where “Amazon is an independent agent” lives. It is a real argument. It exists only if your country signed a treaty with the United States.
Advisors reach into Book 2 for an agent test, then use it to answer a Book 1 question.
If your company sits in a non-treaty or low-tax jurisdiction, Book 2 was never on your table at all. The answer you were given borrowed authority you do not have.
Courts applying U.S. domestic law have found foreign sellers engaged in a U.S. business without the decision ever resting on the agent test. The agent test was never the domestic test.
Which book produced your answer? Most sellers have never been told there were two.
The domestic test is a bundle test. You do not pass or fail on a single fact. Facts accumulate. And they are not equal.
Read down the list. Mark the ones that are true of your business today.
Three heavy sticks and two light ones is a different business from six light ones. What your particular bundle adds up to is the question the Blueprint answers, against your facts. We do not guess that from a web page, and neither should you.
Courts have treated this exact pattern, your own goods in U.S. warehouses selling continuously, as a U.S. business for seventy years. No employees and no office required.
Five parties look at a foreign-owned U.S. business, independently, on their own schedule, against their own standard.
Get approved.
Stay approved.
Filed correctly.
Taxed once.
Get paid.
Any one of them can impact your profits and stop you. No one will tell you why, or how to fix it.
Trade-offs chosen on purpose. Not discovered later.
Nothing breaks in the middle of a system. It breaks where two systems meet and each one assumed the other handled it.
These interact. Change one answer and the right structure changes. That is why there is no template, and why this gets mapped rather than guessed.
There is a defensible range, not a single right answer. Where you sit inside that range is a business decision, and it belongs to you.
Treaty-friendly positioning. Protective filings. The quietest file, at a cost.
Efficiency plus defensible positions, held together by tight documentation.
Higher-yield positions, documented, taken only where the facts support them.
We do not sell positions below reasonable basis.
You decide the band. We map it, document it, and make sure every one of the five reviewers is looking at the same story.
Scott Letourneau has served 7,000+ foreign and U.S. founders since 1997 and holds the MainStreet Certified Tax Advisor® credential. He is not an attorney and not a CPA. He builds the map, then works alongside licensed international tax attorneys and CPAs who execute inside it.
International tax.
Tax and legal.
“I have spoken to several advisors. They are all experienced, but Scott just dives deeper.”