Legal Question in Administrative Law in California

Re: Registration of Business Name

OK, here are a few quick pointers that certainly don't cover all the criteria:

Business names need to be registered with the county only if they are "fictitious." If you do business under your own (last) name or using the registered name of your corporation or LLC, no registration is necessary. In most counties, the County Clerk handles truly fictitious name registrations.

You may also want to register a business name as a trademark for your own protection. That is a federal application, try www.uspto.gov for doing this yourself, on line (costs money and takes a long time).

There is about a 80-90% overlap in suitability of going INC vs. LLC. Your accountant may have some recommendations. I would say LLC if you are in real estate, farming, research (with high initial writeoffs before profits) or if you have a non-resident alien co-owner. Also, LLCs may be better suited where a bunch of co-owners have very diverse roles as investors, owners, managers, employees, etc. -- LLCs can more easily have convoluted control structures. Otherwise, incorporating may be better, especially for businesses having fairly high sales in relation to investment and profits, e.g. retailing, since LLCs have an additional franchise tax tied to gross sales.