What do I need to know in order to set up a company in the U.S.?

    There are a few important questions you may want to ask yourself before you set up a business in the United States. 

1.     What will the company do? 

• There are some activities that require a license (such as medicine, dentistry or architecture) or special permission (banking, insurance, aviation) before it can be formed.

2. Who will own the company? 

• These will be the shareholders of a corporation or members of a Limited Liability Company ( also known as "LLC").

3. Who will manage the company? 

• These will be the directors and officers of a corporation or managers of an LLC. 

4.  What will the company’s name be? 

• It must follow the rules of the state where the company is formed, and have a corporate indicator.

5. What type of entity will it be? 

• Generally, it will be a corporation, an LLC, or a sole proprietorship. 

6. What state will it be incorporated in?

•  This will be either in the state where it is doing business, or in another state like Delaware where there are special legal benefits. 

7. What state will it do business in? 

• If this (or these) state(s) are not where the company is incorporated, it must register to do business there as a foreign corporation. 

8. Who will act as registered agent? 

• Almost every state requires its companies to maintain a legal address and agent within its borders to accept legal process and to which the state government can send annual reports, annual tax forms or other compliance matters.

To learn more about how to set up a company/business in the U.S., please come to our special seminar called "Setting up your U.S. Business" to be held in mid-October, 2013 by Renate Harrison, a US & Canadian Business Lawyer of HazloLaw. For more information about the seminar, please call HazloLaw at 613-747-2459 x 306. 

Ms. Renate Harrison: 
A graduate of the prestigious Harvard Law School, Renate Harrison is a U.S. and Canadian business lawyer at our Ottawa office and she practices in the areas of Business Law and Corporate Finance. Renate advises Canadian companies on the formation and operation of U.S. subsidiaries and on strategic alliances, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and asset sales. In that capacity, she regularly acts for start-ups, private equity and venture capital firms, issuers and underwriters in placing  debt and equity securities in Canada and in the United States. Renate is a member of the Ontario bar and she is also admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and Tennessee in the United States. To learn more about Renate Harrison, please visit http://www.hazlolaw.com/people/renate-harrison.  

Weekly Q & A / Legal Questions for Entrepreneurs: What is a creditor-proofing plan?

This week I received a really important question:

What is a creditor-proofing plan?

It is a legal plan allowing you to protect your personal and business assets and benefits from various tax exemptions. You can achieve protection through the way you’re structuring your business, by changing who owns what. By consulting a business lawyer, you may be able to save Thousands of Dollars in taxes.

Every entrepreneur that I know is working extremely hard and are fully dedicated to their businesses. For most of them, they are so much busy running their businesses and keeping cash flow positive that they are sometimes loosing sight of extremely important issues. I mean protecting what they earned by working hard and taking risk. We all know that it is impossible to predict the future; in any event, what we can do is being diligent and proactive with our actions. The objective of creditor proofing plan is to highlight some easy ways to structure your businesses in order to protect yourself and your businesses against creditors and, in the process used at your advantage various tax exemptions.

Business owners: Ask your FREE legal question(s) related to business/tax law.

I am glad to announce that as of today, I would like to interact more frequently with business owners through my blog. In order to achieve this objective, I will once a week, choose and respond to 1 legal question received by the public. Your question(s) should be related to business/tax law. Please don’t be shy and send your legal question(s) at hugues.boisvert@andrewsrobichaud.com - Once a week, I will post on my blog the question and the answer. I am looking forward to receiving a lot of questions.