What do you need to know before incorporating your business?

by Victor Mmartinez Victor Mmartinez

Summary: Want to register your business successfully? You need to find a good company offering business registration service and you can thus feel confident.

Corporations have legal permission to do things that individuals can do such as signing contracts, obtaining property, filing lawsuits, and having bank accounts. Incorporating legally separates a business from its owners. Through incorporating, you can limit your liabilities regarding business obligations. Transferring ownership is easier with corporations because it is contained in shares. If you are planning to attract outside investors or even sell your business, incorporating would be a good choice.

Unlike general partnerships or sole proprietorships, corporations can continue to exist far beyond their founder's lives. However, setting up or dissolving a corporation costs money, and corporations have to perform some additional tasks like recordkeeping and annual reporting. Whether incorporating can save you money on taxes or causes you pay more, depends on your individual situation. Before you start looking for Incorporate business registration services, read the following to get a basic idea about incorporating.

Business name

Although rules for business names can differ from state to state, there are some general guidelines including:

· You must have a different business name from other business entities registered in your state. You can check for similar business names using an online search tool.

· You are not allowed to use certain words in your business names like the word 'bank' or any obscene words.

· The name must end with 'company', 'incorporated', 'corporation' or an abbreviation for such words.

Business address

The business address means the place where the business receives mail. In most cases, P.O. Box is used as the business address.

Decision-makers

Your incorporation article must include the names of the decision-makers. You need to identify two types of decision-makers 1) incorporators, and2) directors.

An incorporator prepares, signs, and files the articles of incorporation. Once the articles are filed, the duty of an incorporator ends, and a board of directors is selected.

The board of directors sets corporate goals and policies, giving a name to the officers for conducting the day-to-day business of the corporation.

Business owner names

A corporation' owners are referred to as shareholders, owning shares of stock. The articles of incorporation must specify the number of stock shares the corporation is allowed to issue. The internal corporate records must include the names of the shareholders as well as the number of shares of stock.

Note

Filling U.S. taxes from abroad is possible through IRS free files which is software offered at IRS.gov, partnered with the tax software industry.