Legal Question in Business Law in Massachusetts

Re: Forming a Corporation

Depending on what you want to accomplish in terms of marketing, liability insulation, business accounting, etc. you have mutliple options for organizing your business(es).

Please feel free to contact me at 508-565-1413 if you want to discuss this further.

Re: Forming a Corporation

Each of the businesses could operate under one corporate umbrella provided you filed a d/b/a certificate in the city/town where you will operate the various businesses to show that these businesses are a d/b/a of xyz corp. Perhaps more prudent, but more expensive would be to incorporate each entity (especially if they are going to be operating in different advertising areas). This way if one entity did not work out, you could close it without adversely impacting the other operating entities. Of course, this would require each entity to have maintain its own books, records etc. In my opinion, the latter course, though more expensive, would ultimately give you greater flexibility.

Re: Forming a Corporation

It is quite rare that multiple entities are actually of any practical use -- the classic example is New York City taxicab companies, where the medallions are so valuable that each taxi is held by a separate corporation, so if there is a horrible accident that exceeds the amount of available insurance, the plaintiff can only get one taxi medallion rather than those of the whole fleet. Insurance is MUCH cheaper than maintaining tax/accounting on multiple corporations.

You can file a "d/b/a" certificate with the town hall of your town, which permits a corporation to do business under a name other than its formal legal name.

Best wishes,

LDWG

Re: Forming a Corporation

You can create one corporation or one LLC for each business although you will need to file a d/b/a for each different business in the town you out of which you operate.

You could also form a seperate corporation for each business, which would be more expensive or create several different kinds of entities depending upon your business needs.

There is an advantage to a one-man LLC over a corporation in that you can elect for tax purposes only to avoid filing a return and treat the income and expense as you would if you were a self-employed on a Schedule C of your 1040. This saves the cost filing two state and federal returns versus only one of each. You would not need to file a separate tax return for the business and yourself. You still would have Limited Liabllity.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.