Getting started When advising her technology clients with worldwide operations, attorney Susan Nycum encourages them to do tax planning early and to locate in a city where they feel most comfortable. Tax planning allows companies to establish themselves without becoming subject to local taxes they might otherwise avoid. You can get yourself in a position of having a permanent establishment without meaning to. Nycum also advises clients, especially those moving into China and other developing nations, to make sure their intellectual property is protected through such measures as registering trademarks locally. Another consideration is deciding where to set up shop.
Some countries are more pleasant environments for business dealings.
It's a lesson the head of one Seattle architectural firm learned more than a decade ago, during his early attempts to establish relationships overseas. Part of the problem for NBBJ came from foreigners seeking out the company for reasons other than those stated. NBBJ managing partner Jim Joneson recalls an encounter in the mid-1980s with a group of Chinese officials looking for a firm to design an international trade center and exhibition hall. Joneson went in prepared to discuss details, only to have the officials pressure him to provide in his contract a fleet of automobiles, a status symbol in that part of China. The whole thing was a way to get hold of American automobiles.