What Are the Benefits of Incorporating Your
Business? Incorporating As A Way To Reduce Business Risk and
Protect Personal Assets
You can incorporate in any state if you meet the
basic requirements of that state. However,all states require
you to have a registered agent present in the state to accept
service of process and many states require you to have a business
office presence in that state.
You can contract for registered agent services
and do not need to have a physical office presence unless your
state requires this. If a physical office presence is required,
you can in most cases purchase this from a registered agent
service as well.
In cases where your business is confined within
the state where you are located, it usually makes most sense
to incorporate within that state. This is the case for most
local service businesses who do business locally. You still
can incorporate in another state if you meet the requirements
of that state, but you would need to register to do business
in your home state anyway, so in most cases incorporation in
another state will not derive significant benefits.
If however you derive income nationwide or worldwide;
for example in the case of an Internet business, there may be
some benefit to incorporating in one of the common "corporation
friendly" states such as Nevada, Delaware, Wyoming, Florida,
etc.
The primary reasons for selecting one of these
states is that they generally have a streamlined, corporation
friendly corporations law and process. Additionally, these states
so not have state income taxes so there could be state income
tax benefits if income is kept within that state. Consult your
tax advisor regarding these issues.
