Team, Co-founders & Legal

What licenses, registrations, and tax IDs do I need right after incorporation to legally operate and pay people?

A starting point

Incorporation is step one; you can't actually run a business on the CIN alone. For an Indian Pvt Ltd, get your PAN and TAN (usually issued with incorporation now), open a current account, register for GST once you cross the turnover threshold or need it for B2B invoicing, and get Professional Tax, PF, and ESI registrations before you put employees on payroll. Add Shops and Establishment registration for your state. In the US, get an EIN and register for state payroll and sales tax where you have nexus. Miss the payroll registrations and your first hire becomes a compliance problem.

Go deeper

Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time.

3 resources 3 link-checked

Read

📄 Article
✓ Link checked India Free Beginner

Why we picked it This is the one checklist that names the exact triggers, not just the list of registrations. It spells out EPF at 20+ employees, ESI at 10+ employees earning under 21,000 a month, Professional Tax as state-specific (Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal), plus Shops and Establishment, and pins the corporate deadlines that trip up first-time founders: auditor in 30 days, INC-20A in 180 days, share certificates in 60. Read it before your first hire, because the payroll registrations are the ones people forget.

Compliance Checklist After Company Registration in India

From MPVD & Associates (Chartered Accountants) by MPVD & Associates 12 min read

  • PAN and TAN now arrive with incorporation, but the employee registrations (PF, ESI, PT) are separate and time-sensitive: PF kicks in at 20 employees, ESI at 10 earning under 21,000 a month.
  • Professional Tax and Shops and Establishment are state-level, so your obligations differ by where you actually operate, not where you incorporated.
  • Several statutory clocks start at incorporation independent of hiring: statutory auditor within 30 days, INC-20A within 180 days, share certificates within 60.
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📄 Article
✓ Link checked India Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Most GST explainers stop at the 40 lakh / 20 lakh threshold. This one is written for founders who need to decide whether to register voluntarily before they are forced to, and it makes the B2B case concretely: a registered vendor can issue tax invoices so buyers claim input tax credit, and you recover GST paid on AWS, SaaS, and rent. It also covers the 2025 GSTR-2B mismatch reality, so you register with your eyes open on the filing burden.

GST Compliance for Startups: ITC, IMS, Registration, Deadlines

From Treelife by Treelife 15 min read

  • Mandatory registration is 40 lakh turnover for goods and 20 lakh for services in most states, but interstate supply and e-commerce force registration regardless of turnover.
  • Register voluntarily early if you sell B2B: unregistered vendors force buyers to eat the tax, and you cannot reclaim input credit on tools, ads, or rent without registration.
  • GST is an ongoing filing commitment, not a one-time step: ITC now depends on GSTR-2B auto-matching, so supplier compliance directly affects the credit you can claim.
Open treelife.in →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it For the US side of a two-entity setup, this is the canonical founder-facing reference on the EIN (your federal tax ID), federal corporate returns, state income tax where you have physical presence, and the sales tax nexus trap it flags as 'Here. Be. Dragons.' If you are an Indian founder standing up a Delaware C-corp to sell to US customers, this is the plain-English map of what the EIN unlocks and where nexus quietly creates filing obligations.

Business taxes: A Stripe Atlas Guide

From Stripe by Stripe Atlas 20 min read

  • The EIN identifies the company (not you) and is the US equivalent of getting your entity tax-ready; it gates banking, payroll, and federal filings.
  • Sales tax nexus is the sharp edge: you can owe sales tax in any state where you have a connection (customers, employees, property), and states keep broadening the definition.
  • Federal corporate tax (Form 1120) plus state income tax where you have presence is not a DIY job; the guide is explicit that you hire an accountant, and it is thin on state payroll registration so pair it with a state-specific payroll resource before your first US hire.
Open stripe.com →

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