Eight mistakes. All avoidable. All happened anyway. [TGS Email 3/5]

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⚠️ Demo note: Day three. The link to the full mistakes page demonstrates how the static pages extend the emails without cluttering them – the email creates the appetite, the page satisfies it.
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I want to tell you something that might be uncomfortable.

Most of the clients who’ve come to us with cross-border problems didn’t come to us first. They came to us after something went wrong. After the penalty. After the audit. After the structure they’d built turned out to have a flaw that was entirely predictable – if you knew what to look for.

None of them were careless people. Most of them were moving fast, which is what ambitious businesses do. But speed has a cost when the compliance catches up.

Here are three of the situations we see most often.

Assuming your home structure travels well. The way your business is set up – its legal form, its ownership structure, the way profits flow – may create unexpected tax exposures the moment you cross a border. What works perfectly at home can be costly abroad. Sometimes seriously so.

Missing the employment law moment. Many countries require formal contracts, state contributions, and full compliance with local labour law from the very first hire. “We’ll sort it out once we’re established” is a reasonable instinct. It’s also how penalties happen.

Moving faster than your advisers. Hiring people, signing leases, starting to trade – before the structure is ready to support it. This is the most common theme we see in cross-border problems. Not negligence. Just momentum.

These are three of the eight. The full list includes some less obvious ones – including one about bank accounts that surprises almost everyone the first time they hear it.

Read all 8 mistakes →

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One more thing while you’re thinking about this:

If you’re wondering whether your target country is one where we have people on the ground – people who’ve seen these problems up close and know how to get ahead of them -

See where TGS has member firms →

If you can see your target country on that map, reply and tell me. I’ll tell you exactly who you’d be talking to.

Tomorrow: I’ll show you what actually happens when you need help across borders. The phone call most business owners don’t know they could be making.

Horacio Rocha San Miguel
Managing Partner, TGS Mexico