How and where do I incoperate my business?

Question

I made an ONLINE business and I want to incorperate it. I want my business to look like this: mybusiness Inc. I live in Pennsylvania. Where would I incorperate it? My business is a website. I do not want to pay taxes and will my business and slogan become copyrighted when I do this? Is this the same thing as a DBA? THANKS!

Answer 1

The Secretary of State for Pennsylvania may have a web site. You will be required to pay taxes on your income, just like every other business and person, whether you incorporate or not. Incorporation is not the same thing as copyright.

DBA stands for Doing Business AS. If you own a McDonald's franchise, and form a corporation called my restaurant, Inc.. Then you may be known in some circles as my restaurant, Inc DBA McDonald's. But DBA doesn't seem to apply to you.

Answer 2

You incorporate a business in the state records. Check the Pennsylvania state website. It probably has a simple set of instructions for how to do this. It usually requires some articles of incorporation, bylaws, and minutes of first meeting. You can reserve a name through this process, but it is not a copyright. No one else will be permitted to file a deceptively similar name in the same state, but that doesn't stop others in other states from filing the same name.

A DBA is different. DBA means "doing business as". In some states this is called an assumed name certificate. It is usually a filing that must be made with the city or county. If you are operating an unincorporated business or if you are using a business name that is different from your official company incorporation name, it is important to file a DBA with the local officials so that persons who do business with you know how to find out who you are from the public records.

These filing requirements differ slightly from state to state and city to city. The best advice is contact your local or city company registrations office and ask them for a list of the filings that will be required.

If you want copyright protection. you can help your case by being sure to put "copyright " to any sales materials or product brochures you produce, and also at the bottom of your website page. But technically no special filings are required to get protection. If you are creating extremely valuable copyrighted material (like the lyrics to a hit song), you might consider filing for federal copyright protection, but that is usually much more than you need to do for simple copyrighted materials. I have only lightly touched this subject to give you some ideas. If you're really interested in copyright I would urge you to check with a lawyer or do some further reading of general materials on the subject.

Answer 3

DBA is doing business as. Right now, since you are not a LLC, Corp, Inc, S corp, etc... you are a DBA. As you are Mike Smith DBA (doing business as) MyBusiness.

Incorporation is to protect you from lawsuits, to remove responsiblity as owner, etc. But there are laws and rules with this. For one, you will have to pay taxes, to not pay is tax fraud. Being a Corp or Inc as such, you will not have free access to the cash of the business. As taking money over your salary at that point is considered theft of corporation. As it not longer belongs to you, but stands on its own as a corporation. So even as the owner, you can be jailed for theft if you take cash from the company.

Trademark, Register, etc is not the same as Inc, Corp, LLC, etc. Those pertain to your images, name, logo, slogan, etc.

My opinion, since its just a web site and its just you. Drop the dreams of Inc, Corp, etc as all you will do is waste 1200 bucks and gain nothing from it but massive headaches and tax isssues.

Next, stay as a DBA like you are, specially if you are trying not to collect taxes. To put a business name up there besides a DBA will alert IRS and every other office to expect a tax check from you. When one doesn't come, they WILL come looking for you.

Since its a dot com, and the fact you already have the dot com. I wouldn't register or trademark the name either. You can to feel more at ease, but you already have what is called " first use ". Since you are using it first, if another comes along and tries to steal your name due to no copyright. You can easily fight and win on the grounds of "first use ". The register/patent office has this rule/law. I have had to use it myself.

Otherwise just get a business account if need be to cash checks made out to the dot com. Even as a DBA you can set up a business checking account. If you get payments say from Paypal and then routed to a bank account. Then leave it that simple. The less your "business name" comes up, the less you appear on tax lists.

If you want to get more info on LLC, DBA, Inc, Corp, Copyright, etc. Attorney is person to talk to. There are some that specialize in just these items. Many will talk to you free at first.

Answer 4

Contact the state sec. of state. This is who handles these matters.

Answer 5

tell your friends about it. tell your parents friends and tell people in high plases. see if that works.