There's a terrific amount of information out there on different business structures and at least the same amount of misinformation and lack of understanding of the differences. Attached is a simple comparison, and I stress simple, of the tax-related differences between sole-proprietorships, corporations and S-corps, and LLC's. FWIW. Paul -----Original Message----- From: Michelle Smith <michelle at smithpianoservice.com> To: 'Pianotech List' <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 7:51 pm Subject: RE: Incorporation questions Hi Geoff and others. My husband (a graphic designer) and I combined our businesses into one corporation. Our reasons for doing this were to keep our business finances completely separate from personal and to remove personal liability. (He does large scale corporate and political advertising.) We incorporated together but have a dba (doing business as) for each business. The dba’s are where our clients write checks. I believe my husband used an online service for incorporating which reduces your costs but leaves you with a lot of work. The whole process has been pretty overwhelming. My husband fell behind on the paperwork (he’s a creative spirit, bless his heart) and I had to rescue the corporation. I’ve taken over all of the bookkeeping except for our end of the year taxes which our CPA does. Quickbooks helps me quite a bit because I subscribe to their payroll service. We’re at the point of doing monthly payroll deposits and it sends me reminders and then I e-file. If your business has become large enough to be concerned about personal liability and income tax, then go for it but be aware of the amount of self-education that is involved. Best wishes! Michelle Smith Smith Piano Service Bastrop, Texas SNIP Today's questions are directed to those among you who have actually gone through the process of starting a corporation and then converting it to an S corporation. : What, exactly, is the process? : Did you do it yourself, or did you hire an attorney? : Changing from Sole Proprietor to Corporation, how do you cover the question of stocks and board meetings? : What about creating a business "name" that ends in Inc., Corp., or Ltd.? To whom do your tuning clients write their checks to? I've found all the forms. And even though there are only about three really basic items being asked for on them, I find myself overwhelmed with questions and procedures regarding the process of actually acquiring and/or creating those items. So I guess my only real question is: How did you do it? -- Geoff Sykes, RPT -- Los Angeles -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080319/0e140667/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Tax Comparison.doc Type: application/msword Size: 41984 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080319/0e140667/attachment-0001.doc
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