If you are a United States citizen or a US permanent resident, you are required to report your income and pay income tax in the United States, even for income from around the world. There is a tax credit for income taxes that you pay in other countries.
You are required to pay income tax on your income as long as you have income, even if you don't yet have licenses, permits, or other things that might be required by local laws. Income is income even if you don't have the right permits yet.
However, you can't deduct your start up expenses until you actually have income and the business is operating. If you were asking about your 2016 tax return, which was due April 15, then you would report your income from 2016 and your expenses from 2016. If you had expenses but no income, you can deal with the expenses when the business starts operating and you actually have income. The same thing is true of 2017. If you have start up expenses in 2017, but you won't have any income until 2018, then you would not report the business on your 2017 tax return. Instead, you would report the business income and expenses when you start having income.
Start up expenses are deductible when the business starts operating. If you have less than $5000 of start up expenses, you can deduct them in the first year. If you have more than $5000 of start up expenses, you can deduct some of them in the first year, and the rest have to be amortized or spread out over the next 15 years. The amount you can deduct any amount you must amortize follows a formula published by the IRS that depends on the amount of start up expenses.
