You don't need a DBA if you have registered a company and want to use the company name for doing business...John Fernandez wrote:I appreciate the help, looks like I need to establish an LLC and get a tax id. Once I get the LLC established should I still go to the county clerks office for a DBA or is that only if I dont want to do business as the LLC?
A DBA is an "alias" or "AKA" (also known as). If you register a company name "JF CHL Training, LLC" and do business using that name... no DBA is needed.
If you want to start a side business, or some related business using the same LLC, but you want to use a different name, you can either register a new LLC or file a DBA for the other name.... "JF CHL Training, LLC, DBA Southpaw Shooters"... IIRC, you can have a dozen DBA's pointing to the same LLC as long as you file the proper paperwork. The DBA is useful for retaining trademarks, etc under the alternate name, and you'll need to have a DBA filed if you want to open a separate bank account for the DBA business.
You do need to make sure that any name you want to use is not currently registered in TX. If you pick a name that is already a popular brand, you can run into trademark issues, "Pepsi" is taken, for example.... "Target" too... But... JF CHL Training, DBA JF Target Training" is probably safe... I think it costs $1 or maybe $3 to do a trademark search on the SOS (secretary of state) web site.
If you still need help after reading the SOS web site, ask... It should be pretty simple as long as you're not trying to do anything too strange.
I didn't want to pay an attorney to set up the company for me, so, I muddled through myself. Wasn't too hard with some slow reading.
For me, the toughest thing was remembering to file state franchise taxes on the correct dates. The state uses some strange dates. Just in the past 2 years or so they've gotten better about sending out reminders in the mail... Unless you take in (gross) over $1M you generally don't have to pay any franchise tax (check with an accountant about your specific situation), but you do need to file the paperwork (TX Franchise tax and PIR [public information report]...you can do it online in about 10-15 minutes per year).
And then you need to decide about Uncle Sam..... If you are a single member LLC, you automatically (check with your accountant.. I'm not 100% sure) get taxed as a sub-S corporation.... If you are a multi member LLC, you can elect to be taxed as a sub-S corp.. meaning.. you pay no corporate taxes and al the earnings get passed to the LLC "members" (shareholders, generally) as income.... Once you choose an entity type (LLC for me) you should contact a good small business accountant who can advise you about how to best file federal taxes in your specific situation...... You do need to make some elections within 30 or 90 days (IIRC) from the date you get your Federal Tax ID... so... don't dally on that one... I can't give you an off the shelf recommendation because everyone has a different specific tax situation... Do some reading about it or pay a few bucks to an accountant to help you on that one... Don't mess with Uncle Sam... Once you get THIS part set up, the rest is easy IMO.
Have fun and good luck to you.
EDIT: Oh.. and don't forget to pay your estimated taxes to Uncle Sam each quarter. You would need to do this even if you did not register as a corporation. April 15th, June 15th (yes, JUNE, not July, I missed that one twice
), October 15th and January 15th (or the next business day if the 15th does not fall on a business day.).