Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Incorporating Websites

Don't worry about not incorporating in the same name as your website; you can file a fictitious name statement. Whoever ends up preparing your incorporation will advise you of this. You should watch out to ensure your business name and website does not sound like another business name.

Something you may want to do if you're not ready to incorporate is reserve your name with the Secretary of State.

Good luck.

Re: Incorporating Websites

In general, you can have one corporation that runs multiple websites and may be devoted to various business ventures. This consolidates and simplifies your business dealings for tax purposes, for example. On the other hand, if you had a high risk venture, for example, you might want to separate that business into a different corporation so that you so-to-speak "quarantine" that business risk. Alternatively, if you have various ventures that involve different owners, you need different business entities. The analysis for your website scenario would depend on what you are doing with the various websites.

Re: Incorporating Websites

A business attorney will address these issues when you retain him/her to do your incorporation(s). There is no one answer to these questions that is suitable for all (e.g., you're probably not Google or Facebook at this point). See my website for more information and let me know if I can be of assistance.

Re: Incorporating Websites

General Motors Corporation didn't find it necessary to have separate corporate identities to produce Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick and Cadillac, to say nothing of a bunch of other brand names. On the other hand, it separately incorporated General Motors Acceptance Corporation, its finance-company subsidiary.

The reasons for incorporating separately each of your brands, product lines, domain names, etc. or not doing so are numerous, and the corporate owners weigh these decisions carefully, considering insulation from liability, corporate simplicity, tax costs and savings, capital-raising issues, accommodating minority ownerships, and so on.

There was a practice some years back for New York City taxicab companies to operate each taxi in a separate corporation, for liability reasons. If Cab 46 were in a wreck, they would put Cab 46, Inc. into bankruptcy and fuhgeddabout it. With minimum corporate franchise taxes at $800 a year in California, it's cheaper to buy insurance.

California has had about a dozen corporations, over time, with WebMedia or Web Media in their names. Most of these have gone out of business, by the way, so there are names of this sort available, but the life expectancy seems to be short.

I would lean toward using a single corporation, as GM did, rather than following the Cab 46 model. This is a decision your lawyer and you should make after considering the costs and benefits, however. The costs of more corporations are more franchise taxes to pay, more stationery to print, and more QuickBooks setups to fiddle with. The benefits are ??? perhaps more insulation of others from the runaway liabilities of one, a la "Cab 46, Inc." but with insurance and prudent management this shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Incorporating Websites

First you have to determine what state to incorporate in. Your tax adviser needs to be involved in that decision.

Next, one corporation can own as many web pages as it likes, with each having a separate identity. The parent corporation name should not be an issue. Simply chose something generic in the overall field that sounds appropriate.

Feel free to contact me for the legal help you'll need in filing, organizing, documenting, etc.