FHS 4: Why and How to Register Yourself

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Once you’ve identified your customers and audience, you can then focus on registering yourself. This episode will be talking about registering in the United States. Why and how to register yourself can seem daunting, but with a little patience, you’ll come out alright. Registering yourself is the act of telling the world who you legally are. Then you will have a barrier between your personal stuff (like money, car, and home) and your business stuff.  

You can name your business almost anything you want but you’re going to pick something that is in-line with what you are doing and your market. Work on a name for you business that mixes creativity and the market research you just performed. Right now, we’re not going to focus on if it’s already been used. You want to just have a brain dump of possible business names.

When you have a few names that you want to use, sleep on it. See how you feel the next day. You’ll possibly eliminate a few names when you get a rested brain looking at them. Now we need to pick how and what you are going to register.

There are four different ways to register your business

1. Entity Name protects you on a state level
2. Trademark protects you at a federal
3. Doing Business As (DBA) is a “What are you going as…” type of thing. No legal protection but sometimes required based on state
4. Domain name for websites

We are going to focus on  the Business Structure and your Entity Name. Once you’ve honed in on a single name, it’s time to work on your Business Structure. A business structure is a framework for your business that can dictate how it operates, spends money, pays taxes, and how it’s protected. They vary on what your goals are for the business, how much risk you are comfortable with, and what tax benefits you are after. Most people choose either LLC or S-Corp.

PAUSE. At this point, I want you to seriously consider hiring a tax professional to talk to and get their stamp of approval. They will be able to help guide you through the different choices with a business structure and how it pertains to taxes within your specific state. You will need to already have an understanding where you want you business to physically operate and what your long-term goals are for your business. RESUME.

 

LLC vs S-Corp Business Structure

LLC

In a nutshell, an LLC separates your personal assets from your business assets. This is good in case your LLC faces a lawsuit or bankruptcy. You have what is called a ‘Corporate Veil’ separating your personal things from your business things. This includes bank accounts, physical items, and other assets. Don’t you DARE mix these two. You’ll screw yourself over in the long run.

There are also tax benefits, profit/loss benefits, and legal benefits that may be attractive to you. When it comes to taxes, your profits and losses are passed through the business and attached to your personal income. This can be good because you’re not taxed twice; you don’t have to pay corporation tax. The downside though is that you are considered ‘self-employed’ and will need to pay taxes towards Medicare and Social Security.

If you have more than one member (owner) of the entity, you’re automatically labeled as a partnership for tax purposes. There are no maximum level of members for an LLC while an S-Corp is capped at 100.

Most people can take care of this themselves as it’s not too difficult. Most states have a single page form that you can fill out to take care of this. You’ll have to register with your specific state for your LLC….for every state you want to operate in…. This should run you between $100 – $175 per state on average if you do this yourself.  

You will have to renew this registration yearly to ensure you are still valid. Expect to pay a smaller renewal fee.

 

S-Corp

An S-Corp is a special type of Corporation that has a whole different range of tax benefits, profit/loss structure, and legal standings. Similar to a LLC, an S-Corp has defined lines of liability protection. Unlike an LLC, you can have Shareholder, directors, officers, and employees. You can attract investors through the sales of stock in your S-Corp. The person who purchases a stock in your company is called a shareholder and is therefore a part owner. You can have a maximum of 100 shareholders and they all need to be US citizens.

With taxes, you are also protected from the double-taxation with a traditional Corporation. You will be filing your taxes once a year once created. After the owner passes away or moves on, the S-Corp still will continue to exist perpetually. There are no maximum level of members for an LLC while an S-Corp is capped at 100.

For an S-Corp route, I would strongly suggest consulting with your accountant to ensure you set this up with in line with your business goals. There are a lot of things to consider with setting up an S-Corp that would take up an entire article. On average, expect to pay about $100-150 depending on your state if you decide to register an S-Corp yourself.

 

It doesn’t matter what you choose, your own state has different registration requirements that will be slightly different from others. Please verify with your Secretary of State’s website to make sure you fall within the guidelines.

Now you’re ready to register!

Click Here to Get Started to Register

Check for a Domain Name

Before you officially register with your state, let take a look to see if your business name is available as a website. Quickly put in your business name into a search engine and see if a website exists. If you’ve found that both the Domain Name and Entity Name are available, go ahead and register! We’ll talk about how to grab that domain name and create a website in the upcoming episodes/article.

 

Register with your State

Open up a web browser and navigate to your Secretary of State website. Navigate to the corporation filings section to complete an online registration form. During registration, you will be notified if your name is already taken. At  the same time, check to see if the website domain for you business is already taken THEN check your state’s Entity names. If you’ve found that both the Domain Name and Entity Name are available, go ahead and register!

Congrats! You’ve just made yourself legal. You should get a confirmation email with your official Entity registration information for your state. Let’s talk about getting your finances lined up to start taking in payments the right way.

 

Secretary of State Websites

1. Alabama Secretary of State, 334-242-7200
2. Alaska Secretary of State, 907-465-2530
3. Arizona Secretary of State, 602-542-3230
4. Arkansas Secretary of State, 501-682-1010
5. California Secretary of State, 916-653-3795
6. Colorado Secretary of State, 303-894-2251
7. Connecticut Secretary of State, 203-566-3216
8. Delaware Secretary of State, 302-739-4111
9. District of Columbia Secretary of State, 202-727-7278
10. Florida Secretary of State, 904-488-9000
11. Georgia Secretary of State, 404-656-2817
12. Guam Government Site
13. Hawaii Secretary of State, 808-586-2727
14. Idaho Secretary of State, 208-334-2300
15. Illinois Secretary of State, 217-782-7880
16. Indiana Secretary of State, 317-232-6576
17. Iowa Secretary of State, 515-281-5204
18. Kansas Secretary of State, 913-296-2236
19. Kentucky Secretary of State, 502-564-2848
20. Louisiana Secretary of State, 504-925-4704
21. Maine Secretary of State, 207-287-3676
22. Maryland Secretary of State, 410-225-1330
23.  Massachusetts Secretary of State, 617-727-9640
24. Michigan Secretary of State, 517-334-6206
25. Minnesota Secretary of State, 612-296-2803
26. Mississippi Secretary of State, 601-359-1333
27. Missouri Secretary of State, 314-751-1310
28. Montana Secretary of State, 406-444-3665
29. Nebraska Secretary of State, 402-471-4079
30. Nevada Secretary of State, 702-687-5203
31. New Hampshire Secretary of State, 603-271-3242
32. New Jersey Secretary of State, 609-530-6400
33. New Mexico Secretary of State, 505-827-4508
34. New York Secretary of State, 518-474-4752
35. North Carolina Secretary of State, 919-733-4201
36. North Dakota Secretary of State, 701-328-4284
37. Ohio Secretary of State, 614-466-3910
38. Oklahoma Secretary of State, 405-521-3911
39. Oregon Secretary of State, 503-986-2200
40. Pennsylvania Secretary of State, 717-787-1057
41. Puerto Rico Secretary of State, 787-722-2121
42. Rhode Island Secretary of State, 401-277-2357
43. South Carolina Secretary of State, 803-734-2158
44. South Dakota Secretary of State, 605-773-4845
45. Tennessee Secretary of State, 615-741-2286
46. Texas Secretary of State, 512-463-5555
47. Utah Secretary of State, 801-530-4849
48. Vermont Secretary of State, 802-828-2386
49.  Virgin Islands Secretary of State, 340-776-8515
50. Virginia Secretary of State, 804-371-9141
51. Washington Secretary of State, 360-725-0377
52. West Virginia Secretary of State, 304-558-8000
53. Wisconsin Secretary of State, 608-266-3590
54. Wyoming Secretary of State, 307-777-7311