Thinking about incorporating? DON'T waste your time with
those online companies that claim to incorporate you.
Unless of course you just have a bunch of money laying
around. I am sharing this with you because of the lesson I
learned the hard way.

I'll start by saying I know pretty much nothing about
business when it comes down to all of the legal issues, tax,

and accounting mubo jumbo and so forth. I like to just
concentrate on doing the work at hand. For example, if you
mow lawns, then you should do just that. Why should you
have to have a business degree, learn to be a tax whiz, and
be a legal expert right? While all of these are great
occupations, and their great to know about, if you mow
lawns, then that would really put you out of a lot of time and
energy, when you could concentrate on getting accounts
and getting the work done.

I made the mistake of starting a business jumping in
head first, and with the best intentions of course, but I
ended up in a mess. I fell into the hype of all of those
"incorporate now" websites, and I'm not mentioning names
(there are a ton of them), as they seem to all be very similar.

Most of them will ask you if you would like to
incorporate, what type of corporation package would you
like- as if you were ordering at a drive- thru. They are not
allowed to and won't give you any sort of legal advice, as
they just sell the "package." It's really up to you to do ALL of
the homework and research about the LLC's, S corps, C-
corps, etc. They will in most cases be your "registered
agent," in which you will be represented in the event you are
sued. And they will send you a VERY nice notebook with
stock certificates and numerous other forms. In my case I
got that and a nice library of five books (you would have to


be a lawyer to understand them), which if you were not
already confused- you get the picture.

Ah, then the price. This can be from $600 and up. This is
when I found a lawyer to be the best way in the first place,
as they will know what type of corporation would best suit
you.(No pun intended). In my case I had purchased the
wrong type of corporation, and my lawyer had to fix it. In the
end he charged me $400 to undo one corporation, and fix me
up with the right corporation. AND he was also my
registered agent. He also informed me that if you really
wanted to put in the time, you could do the whole thing
online in most cases for about $75. Wow.

Learn more about this author, Mark Stafford.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

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