How do you start an L.L.C.?

[Cerberus]

see title.

[Ghryphen]

By filling out a form and paying some money

[STUWEY]

Whats an L.L.C. ?

[Stang]

Limited Liability Company

Thinkin of making one up Jester? Whatcha gonna do? :)

[Ghryphen]

Been a while since I messed with the LLC stuff, so I am a bit rusty. You have to write up an operating agreement and register for a tax id number (EIN), and fill out a form you can get on the WA.gov site. Probably cost around $90 to complete it all and it is about $60 a year to renew the license.

They make some kits that will get you through it, I would probably go that route myself next time.

[Gambit]

Stu, the LLC is a legal category of business whose main purpose is to protect the people that run it or invest in it from being sued out of house and home. It's not as complicated or expensive to run as a full-blown S-corp or C-corp, and other business entities such as single-proprietor or partnership don't do squat in this regard. On the downside, you don't get the tax advantages of schedule S or C.

See, without such legal protection, I could own any amount of stock in Huge Giant Company X, which makes a colossal Enron-style boo-boo, and then get held responsible for a portion of HGCX's legal damages - which might or might not be equivalent to the percentage of shares owned by me. Without such protections, businesses would have a hard time raising money and there would be no such thing as "venture capital." Well, there might, but it'd be a heck of a lot harder to get.

[Raiyven]

ooo, there's my lesson is business for today :) Thanks Gambit, i didn't know what it meant until now either. Good show :)