Entity formation
Your company is formed, and from the first day you know what is due and when.
LLC · Corporation · EIN · Registered agent · BOI · choice of state
Your company is formed, and from the first day you know what is due and when.
LLC · Corporation · EIN · Registered agent · BOI · choice of state
Filing the formation document takes minutes and costs very little. What catches people out is what follows: annual reports, franchise tax filings, registered agent renewals, federal information returns, and obligations whose late filing carries a five-figure penalty.
We form the company, but the real reason to bring a CPA in at this stage is the conversation that happens before formation.
The default answer for most small businesses and for founders outside the United States. Pass-through taxation, light formalities, flexible ownership. A single-member LLC is transparent for tax purposes — but where the owner is foreign, a separate federal reporting obligation arises.
Not a separate type of company but a tax election. Once profit reaches a level that can carry a reasonable salary, it can reduce self-employment tax. Non-resident foreign owners cannot make this election — which closes the option off for many founders living abroad.
The structure institutional investors expect, and the one that makes share options possible. It is subject to corporate tax and to a second layer on dividends; for a business that distributes its profit to its owners it is rarely the right answer.
Wyoming, Delaware, Texas and Florida — each is recommended loudly somewhere online. The honest answer is this: if you actually operate in a state, you generally have to be registered there as well, wherever you formed the company. Forming elsewhere does not remove a registration; it adds a second registration and a second annual fee.
No state removes federal tax. The saving at state level is real, but it is usually smaller than it is presented to be and is often offset by the cost of a double registration.
You do not have to live in the United States to own an LLC or a corporation there. Without an SSN or ITIN the EIN process takes longer, and annual reporting obligations come into play — we plan for both from the start.
The company is formed independently and obtains its own EIN. An ITIN becomes relevant when you personally have to file a U.S. return. Not knowing this order leads to months of delay.
The state fee, the registered agent and the filings. The total annual cost, together with what it would be in whichever state you choose, is in front of you before you decide.
A conversation before the year closes can change what you pay in April. Held in January, the same conversation is only a diagnosis.
If a report was missed the position is clearer still: the voluntary disclosure programs can reduce penalties substantially and sometimes remove them altogether. The single condition is coming forward before the IRS contacts you. The moment an examination opens, that door closes.
In both cases the deciding factor is the same one: timing.
Free, about half an hour, and nothing follows from it — if your situation is not a fit for us, we will say that plainly too.