Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller is aggressively targeting businesses claiming a home-based business exemption on their Nevada Business License. Miller says the filings, which are often intentionally false, are costing the state tens of millions of dollars in unclaimed revenue and placing an unfair disadvantage on businesses that comply with the licensing regulations. As of Saturday, August 6, 2011 any business applying for a license and claiming the exemption will be required to provide specific information that will verify the business’s location as a residence and net earnings of less than $27,000 per year. Letters requesting verification are being sent to the more than 60,000 businesses already claiming the exemption, and businesses that do not respond will have their license status revoked.

Read the whole story here.

If you want to see the new exemption form which needs to be filed with Business License Exemption

The Annual Report License Tax is $50 or two-tenths of one mill on the dollar ($.0002) whichever is greater based on the company’s assets located and employed in the state of Wyoming.

So, if you don’t have any assets or employees in the state of Wyoming the annual fee is $50.

If you would like us to file the annual report for you, we charge $15 over the state fee.

The exemption codes are: 001 – A government entity

002 – Nonprofit organization

003 – Home Base business whose net earning is less than $16,500 annually

005 – Primary Business is to create motion pictures

International clients wanting to get an EIN can call IRS at this number 1-215-516-6999, and get an EIN right over the phone, without having to wait for an ITIN.

The Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act would:

Beneficial Ownership Information. Require the States to obtain a list of the beneficial owners of each corporation or LLC formed under their laws, ensure this information is updated annually, and provide the information to civil or criminal law enforcement upon receipt of a subpoena or summons.

Non-U.S. Beneficial Owners. Require corporations and LLCs with non-U.S. beneficial owners to provide a certification from an in-state formation agent that the agent has verified the identity of those owners.

Penalties for False Information. Establish civil and criminal penalties under federal law for persons who knowingly provide false beneficial ownership information or intentionally fail to provide required beneficial ownership information to a State.

Exemptions. Provide exemptions for certain corporations, including publicly traded corporations and the corporations and LLCs they form, since the Securities and Exchange Commission already oversees them; and corporations which a State has determined, with concurrence from the Homeland Security and Justice Departments, should be exempt because requiring beneficial ownership information from them would not serve the public interest or assist law enforcement.

Funding. Authorize States to use an existing DHS grant program, and authorize DHS to use already appropriated funds, to meet the requirements of this Act.

State Compliance Report. Clarify that nothing in the Act authorizes DHS to withhold funds from a State for failing to comply with the beneficial ownership requirements. Require a GAO report by 2013 identifying which States are not in compliance so that a future Congress can determine at that time what steps to take.

Transition Period. Give the States until October 2012 to require beneficial ownership information for the corporations and LLCs formed under their laws.

Anti-Money Laundering Rule. Require the Treasury Secretary to issue a rule requiring formation agents to establish anti-money laundering programs to ensure they are not forming U.S. corporations or other entities for criminals or other suspect persons.

GAO Study. Require GAO to complete a study of State beneficial ownership information requirements for domestic partnerships and trusts.

• Incorporate business
• Do all important steps to start business (for example licensing)
• Provide space for your office or storing your products
• Establish distribution in the U.S.A.
• Set up accounting software and help with bookkeeping (reconcile accounts, etc.)
• Take care of annual corporate requirements (annual minutes of shareholders and directors, annual list filing)
• We can serve on your board of directors or take additional functions (for example Treassury or Secretary).
  That will allow us to open bank account, merchant account for accepting credit cards, get financing for the business, etc.
• Basically your company will have full advantages of any other American companies
• We can give you advice how to run business in the U.S. market
• We can help you with translations or customs so they meet U.S. market expectations.
• We can help you to hire employee and manage payroll. Pay taxes and do payroll reporting.
• You will have adviser on your team.

The offer is available for legitimate businesses only. Please email us your business plan and background information. The cost for administrative and accounting tasks starts at $1,000 – $2,000 per month depending on the size of the company. We also expect opportunity to invest in your business so we can have small ownership position for our help (up to 5%). We want to make your business successful and be your partner.

Each year around the anniversary date of your incorporation you must have an annual meeting of the directors and shareholders.

The written document from that meeting is called Minutes. It must be held in the corporate records.

We offer two services. Full service company minutes preparation. The cost is $20-$25 for preparation of company minutes. The second service we offer is self service. Just login to your account and follow instructions. Self serve minutes can be used for all of your companies on your account.

Click on Company Minutes

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Select what type of document you want to prepare (Organizational or Annual meeting, Corporation or LLC). Enter date of the meeting and click on Begin.

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Fill out simple form with questions like place of meeting, date of meeting, etc.

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Once you submit a set of documents will be generated and ready for your signature.

Full service company minutes. Your client account login (self serve) 

I had a client call who wants to know which is better to do a foreign qualification of his NV corp into New York or just to incorporate all over again in New York, and have one pay the other. I said the usual, we aren’t accountants nor lawyers, but he just wants an opinion from someone who is going through it already. I explained that you are incorporating in each state you go to for EastBiz, but then the question of why came up. If you have a chance, can you give me a brief run down of why you are reincorporating instead of doing foreign qualifications? This is something that I am not really clear on.

This is a very good question and I have given it a lot of thought when making the same decision last year. Our company was growing from Nevada to Tennessee, and later to California.

The law requires that whenever your corporation starts doing business in other states (open office, hire employees) you have to register as a foreign corporation doing business in that state, or to set up a separate corporation in each state in which you do business.

State registration
There is not a big difference in state fees whether you open a new company for each state or get foreign qualification. Foreign qualification usually costs the same amount of money as setting up a new company. So we have to look at other issues.

Keep it simple
I like to keep everything simple. It saves time and money. Having multiple and separate companies means multiple bank accounts, multiple merchant accounts, separate QuickBooks account for each company … that means more bookkeeping and organizational time. Maybe it doesn’t look like a big deal, but once you have three or five companies you will see that it takes more money and time to keep everything well organized. Just think about having one bank account, one paypal account, one credit card and one merchant account for each company. The number of statements can get overwhelming. So here is the argument for keeping just one company.

Payroll issues
I love using the Paycycle payroll program. It costs just a few dollars per employee and a few clicks with the mouse to do payroll for my employees. Not only does it take only a few minutes to do payroll, but most state, federal reporting requirements and taxes also take just a few minutes to file. I cannot imagine using a different system, as this is a really huge time saver. Unfortunately, Paycycle doesn’t support multiple state employee situations very well. And this was one of my personal arguments that compelled me to use multiple companies.

Liability issues
Don’t have all eggs in one basket. When one of your companies owns all the assets, then if anything goes wrong (for example lawsuit) all your assets are at risk. If you have assets in multiple corporations then, you limit your exposure. If one company gets sued, only the assets of that company are at risk. This is a good argument if you own assets like real estate in each state. Having separate companies gives you less exposure.

Also, Michigan statutes do not recognize a name consent. You cannot under any circumstances use a name that is in use.