Concept of Foreign Branches

Concept of Foreign Branches

As the business grows, the company may want to transition to a branch structure as branches are allowed to conduct a much broader range of activity than representative offices. Branches can buy and sell goods, sign contracts, build things, render services, and generally everything that a regular business can do.  A company expands its business by opening up its branch offices in various parts of the country as well as in other countries.

As the business grows, the company may want to transition to a branch structure as branches are allowed to conduct a much broader range of activity than representative offices. Branches can buy and sell goods, sign contracts, build things, render services, and generally everything that a regular business can do.  A company expands its business by opening up its branch offices in various parts of the country as well as in other countries.

A branch office refers to an establishment which carries on substantially the same business and activity as is carried out by its Head Office.  Foreign Branch of a company refers to the branch of a company that operates in the foreign country. It is a branch of a company operating outside the country of its registration.

Some attributes of foreign branch offices are:

  • Does not require opening a separate legal entity in the country of operations
  • The branch is legally part of the company and is not a separate entity
  • The range of the activities that can be undertaken, substantially increase as compared to a representative office
  • Branches generally a constitute taxable presence in a foreign country and must account for and file prescribed returns with the local authorities
  • Attributing the profits to the branch activities require arm’s length transaction
  • Foreign branch is subject to special tax considerations.
  • A subsidiary of a foreign corporation generally is taxed as any other domestic corporation, that is, as a separate taxable entity apart from its foreign parent. In contrast, a branch of a foreign corporation is not treated as a separate taxable entity; instead, the code and regulations employ a set of special rules to determine the tax liability of the branch both in domestic country and foreign country of operations.

Such branch offices help the company in:

  • Spreading its business to diverse locations and thus increasing the customer base
  • Expanding the size of the market for a company's product by attracting more customers
  • Bringing its product closer to the customers by increasing their accessibility to it
  • Making the distribution and marketing of its goods and services easier and more effective
  • Widening the scope of its trading and manufacturing activities
  • Bringing more opportunities and opening unexplored avenues
  • Fuel the growth of the company
  • Enhance its profitability

Related Links

Creation Date Thursday, 29 December 2022 Hits 505

You May Also Like

  • What are Management Entities?

    What are Management Entities?

    In this article we will discuss various types of "Management Entities". Various types of operational units, are created by management, to effectively run, manage and control their business. Different types of functional units, and divisional units, are widely used across industry.

  • Defining Organizational Hierarchies

    Defining Organizational Hierarchies

    A hierarchy is an ordered series of related objects. You can relate hierarchy with “pyramid” - where each step of the pyramid is subordinate to the one above it.  One can use drill up or down to perform multi-dimensional analysis with a hierarchy. Multi-dimensional analysis uses dimension objects organized in a meaningful order and allows users to observe data from various viewpoints.

  • Concept of Subsidiaries

    Concept of Subsidiaries

    A subsidiary is a company that is completely or partly owned by another corporation that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock, and which normally acts as a holding corporation which at least partly or wholly controls the activities and policies of the daughter corporation.

  • General Ledger - Advanced Features

    General Ledger - Advanced Features

    Modern automated general ledger systems provide detailed and powerful support for financial reporting and budgeting and can report against multiple legal entities from the single system. These systems offer many advanced functionalities right from journal capture to advanced reporting. This article will provide an overview of some advanced features available in today's General Ledgers.

  • Concept of Representative Office

    Concept of Representative Office

    A representative office is the easiest option for a company planning to start its operations in a foreign country. The company need not incorporate a separate legal entity nor trigger corporate income tax, as long as the activities are limited in nature.

  • The Subsidiary Ledgers

    The Subsidiary Ledgers

    For any company that has a large number of transactions, putting all the details in the general ledger is not feasible. Hence it needs to be supported by one or more subsidiary ledgers that provide details for accounts in the general ledger. Understand the concept of the subsidiary ledgers and control accounts. 

  • GL - Review & Approve Journals

    GL - Review & Approve Journals

    Review and Approval mechanisms ensure that the accounting transaction is reasonable, necessary, and comply with applicable policies. Understand why we need review and approval processes, what are they, and how they are performed in automated general ledger systems. Learn the benefits of having journal approval mechanisms in place.

  • Introduction to Legal Entities Concept

    Introduction to Legal Entities Concept

    Modern business organizations operate globally and leverage a large number of registered legal entities, and operate through complex matrix relationships.  To stay competitive in the current global business environment, they must often develop highly diverse and complex organizational structures that cross international borders. Learn more about Legal Entities and their importance for businesses.

  • The Accounting Process

    The Accounting Process

    In this article we will focus on and understand the accounting process which enables the accounting system to provide the necessary information to business stakeholders. We will deep dive into each of the steps of accounting and will understand how to identify accounting transactions and the process for recording accounting information and transactions.

  • Global Business Services (GBS) Model

    Global Business Services (GBS) Model

    Global business services (GBS) is an integrated, scalable, and mature version of the shared services model. Global Business Services Model is a result of shared services maturing and evolving on a global scale. It is represented by the growth and maturity of the Shared services to better service the global corporations they support.

Explore Our Free Training Articles or
Sign Up to Start With Our eLearning Courses

Subscribe to Our Newsletter


© 2023 TechnoFunc, All Rights Reserved