This article describes the basics of how to incorporate a company. In truth, thanks to the many specialist online incorporation sites that now exist, the process of incorporating your business is not actually that difficult.
It’s always advisable to seek professional legal advice from a qualified expert before deciding to incorporate your business, to make sure that it is the best path to take. Once you are sure that incorporation is right for you, you need to do the following.
You need to choose a name to register and decide in which state you are going to incorporate your company in. The secretary of state for your chosen state of incorporation will be able to tell you whether or not your chosen name is available in that state. When you make your inquiry, you should also do a trademark check, this can be done at the US trademark website.
Broadly speaking, with small business incorporation, you are usually better off incorporating in your own state of residence if that is where you will be trading in the main. If however your business will be trading across the states, and your plans are for significant growth, you may want to consider Nevada or Delaware as they offer preferential trading conditions.
Once your Company name and state of incorporation have been agreed, you need to start preparing the required official documents, such as; your articles of incorporation, your company’s bylaws and resolutions.
When these documents and your certificate of incorporation have been filed with the secretary of state, you corporation becomes legally official.
The above are just the basic steps of how to incorporate a company. You also need to elect directors, issue your stock certificates and obtain a tax ID number from the IRS.
When you use an online specialist to incorporate your business, a lot of the work is done for you at a reasonable price and the steps that you have to actually take are set out simply for you.