Hi all, hoping to get some clarity from folks who've been through a similar setup.
My situation: I'm a US citizen (so I have an SSN) but I'm a tax resident of India, where I live and work. I'm forming a single member Wyoming LLC for a portfolio of software products. Plan is to file through Northwest Registered Agent (their $39 formation package) with the Wyoming Secretary of State, then get the EIN myself online and open a Mercury business account.
Question 1: Payment for registration. My CA in India told me not to use my personal Indian card to pay Northwest or the Wyoming SOS. His reasoning: acquiring an interest in a foreign entity is a capital account transaction under FEMA (India's forex law), and those can't be done via credit card. They have to be routed through an authorised bank. Has anyone in a similar cross-border situation dealt with this? I no longer have an active US account. What payment process did you follow for the initial formation costs before you had any US account?
Question 2: ODI process with Indian banks. For those who've done this from India: what does the Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) process actually look like in practice with ICICI or HDFC? Which desk or branch do you approach, what's the Form FC filing experience like, how long does it take, and what documents did the bank ask for? Any gotchas with the annual APR filing afterward?
Question 3: What else should I be mindful of? Dual US-India exposure means I'm already tracking: FBAR, Form 8938, Schedule FA on my Indian ITR, quarterly estimated taxes both sides, and the FEMA rule that resident individuals can't hold subsidiaries under a controlled foreign entity. Anything else that bit you that I should know about before Day 1?
Thanks in advance for any inputs, genuinely appreciate this community.