Entity Selection Advisory
The entity question deserves more analysis than it usually receives, because every answer is a package of consequences. A private limited subsidiary offers full operational freedom and the best tax rates, at the price of the fullest compliance calendar. An LLP is lighter to run but constrains external fundraising and carries FDI conditions. A branch office is quick and revenue-capable but taxed at foreign-company rates approaching thirty-five percent, with activity restrictions besides. A liaison office costs least and can do least — no revenue, ever. Each is excellent for what it was designed for and expensive for everything else.
Our advisory starts from your fifth year, not your first form. Tax profiles are modelled across structures — including repatriation costs, not just headline rates; funding plans are tested against each structure's investment rules; liability, governance, and wind-down costs are priced honestly; and conversion paths are mapped, because the structure that fits today should be assessed partly on what changing it later costs. The recommendation arrives in writing, with the trade-offs quantified and the reasoning preserved — a document your board can interrogate and your successors can understand.
What this covers
- Structure comparison — WOS, LLP, branch, liaison, project office — modelled on your business plan.
- Tax profiling per structure: effective rates, repatriation costs, and treaty interactions.
- Funding-rule analysis: what each structure permits for capital, debt, and future investors.
- Liability, governance, and exit-cost assessment, including conversion paths between structures.
- Written recommendation with quantified trade-offs — decision-grade, not brochure-grade.
Who needs this
Foreign companies entering India for the first time; groups adding entities for new lines or ventures; and boards that want the structure decision documented well enough to revisit intelligently.
How we deliver
- Structure workshop against your five-year plan, not your first-year convenience.
- Tax, funding, liability, and exit dimensions modelled per structure.
- Written recommendation with quantified trade-offs, decision-grade.
Why A2 Consultants
Twenty years of watching structures succeed and fail informs every recommendation — including the honest ones that cost us the larger incorporation fee because the lighter structure served the client better.
Engagement & what to expect
Selection engagements run two to four weeks: a structured intake of your five-year intentions, comparative modelling across structures, and a written recommendation with quantified trade-offs — tax, funding, liability, compliance burden, and exit costs. The workshop format suits most clients: positions tested live with your leadership and counsel, questions answered as they arise, and the decision documented with its reasoning. The recommendation is deliberately implementation-neutral; where you proceed with us, the analysis flows directly into execution, and where you do not, it stands alone as decision-grade work.
Structure is decided once and paid for annually — buy the analysis before the consequences buy you.