Incorporation

Introduction

When we incorporate your business we prepare or obtain all the documents and related items that are necessary for your new entity to be in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

What We Do

The documents we prepare or obtain are as follows:

Articles of Incorporation
Certificate of Incorporation
Action of Directors in Lieu of First Meeting
Bylaws
Corporate Minute book
Share certificates
Share transfer ledger
Share subscription agreement/investment letter

If you have formed a corporation and you do not have a corporate minute book or your book does not contain at least each of the above you should have your corporate documents review. You may be out of compliance with state or federal law. Worse yet, if you are sued or audited you could be denied important limited liability protection or tax deductions.

What You Do

After we incorporate your business you will still need to obtain a business license. You will need to visit with an accountant to make a determination as to whether to elect to be treated as an S corporation and to fill out the appropriate form. You will need to obtain and maintain any licenses that are particular to your type of profession. You will be responsible for tax and regulatory compliance starting with obtain tax identifications numbers. See our Tax & Compliance page for more information on this topic. See the Your New Corporation page for a more detailed explanation of what you need to do once you are incorporated.

S corporation vs. C corporation

Incorporating a C corporation is almost identical to incorporating an S corporation. Subchapter C of the Internal Revenue Code governs so-called corporations. Subchapter S of the Internal Revenue Code governs S corporations. To become an S corporation you form a C corporation and then elect S status on an IRS form. See our Business Types for a more through discussion of the differences between a C corporation and an S corporation.

Fees

The cost of incorporating an S or a C corporation is $685.00, inclusive of all fees and expenses. The cost of an LLC is $500.00 inclusive of all fees and expenses because there are substantially fewer documents required to be prepared in the creation of an LLC.

Lawyer vs. Accountant

This is somewhat dangerous territory. We like accountants. Some of our best friends are accountants. We use accountants to answer tax questions that are beyond the scope of our practice. However, we have never seen an accountant prepare an incorporation properly.

Our standing offer. We will review any incorporation. If there is a substantive deficiency in the package you pay our fee to incorporate your business less any costs or expenses already paid and not necessary to duplicate. If there is no substantive deficiency then there is no fee. You negotiate with your accountant (or other professional) that if their lower fee incorporation is found to be substantively deficient then they refund their fee. This is a can't lose opportunity. In effect you obtain a cost free audit and review of your incorporation. Negotiated properly you never pay more than the fee in our practice to incorporate your business. With apologies to all my friends and fellow professionals that are accountants we invite you to take us up on this challenge. By the way we are willing to refund our fee if a substantive deficiency is found in our incorporation package.