Federal Business Laws for Foreign-Owned Businesses
Federal business law guides for foreign-owned and cross-border owners: pay, leave, hiring checks, discrimination, tax, payroll, ownership reports and safety.
Federal business laws for foreign-owned businesses apply whenever a business meets a law's own test, and they reach all Illinois counties alike, Cook County among them. In Kane, DuPage, Will and Kendall counties, the state laws on paid leave and minimum wage apply, not Cook County's ordinances (a city or village can have its own rules). This tier explains 16 federal laws for owners with ties to India or Canada.
What do the 16 federal business laws for foreign-owned businesses cover?
- Pay and people: the FLSA, Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA and OSHA. Size tests differ: the ADEA starts at 20 employees, while Title VII and the ADA's job rules start at 15. The FLSA works differently, turning on the business (at least 2 employees and $500,000 in sales) or on the worker's own job.
- Leave and hiring checks: the FMLA covers a private employer with 50 or more employees on payroll in 20 workweeks of the current or prior year, and staff working outside the United States and its territories are not counted. The FCRA has no size test: an employer that gets a background or credit report from a reporting agency for a hiring decision is covered, and the owner's home country is not a coverage test.
- Tax and payroll: the Internal Revenue Code sets how an LLC or corporation is taxed, and FICA payroll tax has no minimum headcount.
- Ownership and money across borders: the Bank Secrecy Act and FBAR rules, together with the Corporate Transparency Act.
- Marketing, competition and data: the FTC Act, CAN-SPAM, the Sherman and Clayton Acts and GLBA and HIPAA.
- Environment: the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
What matters most to cross-border owners?
Two federal rules turn on ownership and borders. A company formed by filing with a state, which covers every Illinois LLC and corporation, files no beneficial ownership report with FinCEN, while a company formed abroad and registered in Illinois may still have to. A U.S. person, a U.S.-formed company included, files an FBAR when the foreign accounts it has an interest in, or signature authority over, add up to more than $10,000 at any point during the year. The tax code also bars nonresident alien shareholders from S corporations.
See laws that touch a foreign-owned US business for all 38 laws in one table, and read the disclaimer.