On the Write Road

Owning a business means you:

A. Do tasks that are boring.
B. Do tasks that are fun.
C. All of the above.Well, I know the answer is C because filing legal paper work to set up a business with the State of California is not on my favorite-things-to-do list. But because I had a bit more knowledge on the subject than my business partner Melody (thanks Melody), I volunteered to discover what type of business entity or form of ownership was best for our company and how to set it up.



Learning about Business Entities

So what is a business entity? A business entity is a term the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) uses for legally recognized forms of business. The IRS defines five types of entities: Sole Proprietorships, Partnerships, Limited Liability Companies (LLC), Corporations, and S Corporations. BizFilings, an incorporation service, has created a quick reference table that compares each form of business by certain characteristics, such as liability, operational requirements, taxation, etc.

After reading about each entity, I called my tax accountant and discussed my choices. He felt establishing an LLC was the best choice for us because it offers the same liability protection as a corporation, but without the corporate tax and the required formalities, such as formal meeting and record keeping. The LLC is a relatively new type of entity that has only recently become available in all 50 states. My tax accountant told me the easiest way to create the LLC was to go online and use a legal document service. He recommended I use LegalZoom. The process was very simple. I only had to fill out an online questionnaire and LegalZoom did everything else.



After several weeks my documents arrived in the mail. I received a federal tax ID/EIN (Employer Identification Number), a binder with all the appropriate documents, and a friendly letter from the California Franchise Tax Board stating I now owed them $800, the annual tax due for the privilege of doing business here.

So all-in-all the process was quick and not too painful.

Note: I am not an expert in forming business entities so before you choose one, talk to a knowledgeable tax attorney and visit such websites as the Small Business Association (SBA) http://www.sba.gov/index.html and the IRS (business section at http://www.irs.gov/index.html.

Posted in: business entity, irs, limited liability corporation, llc on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at 0 comments    

Our writing business was in the works and now all we needed was a name, just a name.

Adrienne, my partner in crime, tossed the ball in my direction. (Now, that’s two metaphors that don’t rhyme. Ah well, creative writers can’t stop themselves.) She said, “You’re smart and clever; you come up with a name for our business.” There’s nothing like buttering up your partner to get her busy.
Ah, a name…

Juliet:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
I begin to think just a name, and yet entire families war over one. Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague are “starcross’d” lovers who come from warring families. While love is sweet, they are doomed from the start.

Will our name make or break us? Is the pressure on? I begin to doodle Internet style by Googling all the name sites. We are creating a technical writing business, and yet we want it to be fun. We will provide writing and training services, fast and furious. We also do creative writing. Adrienne and I come from journalist and creative backgrounds. Can we slip that in? A poem here. A haiku there. How about Fibonacci? My fave poetry style.

Since my brother has started a business, let’s check his Web site out http://www.rfpmd.com/. He like me – it must run in the family – is smart and clever. He has started an RFP business, which could be dull but isn’t. He did it!

Adrienne and I brainstorm names over coffee as we sneak a peek at our escape plan from our big corporation. What we really want to do is provide quality writing and training on time all the time to a super-satisfied customer. That’s all. Oh yes, and get paid too let’s not forget that. We say hey, write it must be right on yes, it must be on time, write on time! That’s it! We’re brilliant. Write on Time! We have a name! Is that all we need?

Not so easy my dear Watson. We need to get back online, of course, and check if anyone has our name. We’ve already, in 10 minutes, become protective of our baby, our name. We go on to LegalZoom.com to have them check if this name is used in the state of California. You may do this differently depending on your business terrain, ours is California. We knew we needed a name first, and a business structure will come next.

Write on Time was taken, so after much soul searching we came up with Write on Time Solutions! Another great name, we would solve our customers’ problems write on time!

Posted in: business name, fictious name, legazoom, write on time solutions on Monday, September 15, 2008 at 0 comments    

For years professional staffing agencies had brought us into companies to work as contract writers. The agency did the marketing and networking, found the job leads, and then brought in the writers. Now we wanted to find the jobs and then either do the work ourselves or bring in other writers. We felt we could make more money this way, choose the projects we wanted, and have more control.

Posted in: on Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 0 comments