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hey my name is eric in today's video we're talking about starting an llc in massachusetts so in this video i'm not only going to show you three different ways you can do this but also three things that you should be aware of that may create potential cracks in your llc now if you're not familiar with the terms such as piercing the corporate veil registered agents or in your case in massachusetts it's called the resident agent or the term co-mingling funds you're definitely going to want to watch this video because i'm not only going to show you how you can set up an llc but make sure that it's actually protected and doing what it's supposed to do for you and your business now the first screen that we're on here comes from nolo.com this is just a very reputable website written by attorneys and you can see that it's talking about the current filing fee of a certificate of organization so setting up for an llc in massachusetts is 500 by mail and 520 for an online filing so it is an extra 20 to file online which is ridiculous because it should cost less you would think but i just wanted you to know that that fee no matter what route you go to set up your llc in massachusetts you're going to pay that fee so if you do it yourself through their state website through an online legal tool or even if you go through an attorney they may bake that fee into their cost structure but you're going to pay that 500 now if you want to do it yourself going through the state website this is the url that you would do that through uh know that all resources that i'm mentioning in this video are in the description below so you can go to the description and click through to get any of these resources if any of them are paid links i will let you know that in advance but my goal with this video is not to steer you necessarily in one direction or the other but to give you all the information so that you can make the best decision for yourself now if you're looking at this the two methods you can go here is file online which in my opinion is one of the most difficult states to do this within i've never come across this before but you can see here it says if you don't have a cid and pin please contact our office with their email address so basically you have to email their office then get a customer id number and pin number and then be able to go through the process and it is going to cost you an extra 20 bucks if you go online so some people may be deterred by that especially because it's talking about like you need a browser capable of 128-bit encryption blah blah there's a lot of hoops to jump through so some people may want to go the route of the pdf here now the interesting thing though about this pdf is it's very vague with the amount of information and guidance it gives you so if we scroll down and we look at section 5 here it says the name and street address of the resident agent in the commonwealth so i don't like the fact that they just kind of just gloss over this and say like who is your resident agent and the reason for that is if you don't have a proper resident agent set up for your business and i'll explain what all that is in a minute i can create what i was talking about earlier is cracks in your llc so this might be a good time to explain what an llc is and what it is not you probably understand but sometimes people get a little bit confused some people think they're going to set up an llc for tax purposes there's no tax advantage for setting up an llc the advantage of setting up an llc is limiting your liability so when you have your business you have your business assets and then you also have your personal assets so in the business you know it could be the office space the income that you're generating etc but then on your personal side it could be your personal home personal bank account cars all those things so when you set up an llc what you're doing is you're drawing a division between your personal and business assets now if you were to be sued for some reason the attorney who is suing you is going to try to find cracks in your llc and you might remember earlier i talked about a term called piercing the corporate veil so that's like the technical legal jargon but basically what they're trying to do is find a crack in your llc and one of the ways they may be able to do that is if you don't have a proper resident agent set up for your llc and one of the things i don't like by going through the state website is they just kind of really gloss over things they just say you know what's the name street address of the resident agent in the commonwealth to me that's kind of doing a disservice to the person getting set up because it's not explaining what the resident agent is so why don't we take a look at what a registered agent is so if we go to this uh this blog post here from inkfile which is an online legal tool that you can set up within llc and we scroll down a little bit this is really helpful here so down here it says are there other names for a registered agent so it's known by different names in different states in massachusetts as we saw it is called a resident agent that you can see right here so if we go back here you can see that that is mentioned as well here some states call it a statutory agent agent of for services of processor commercial regis registered agent so what does that registered agent actually do in your case resident agent official letters and correspondence from your secretary of state so any kind of information that's coming through they kind of act as a third-party go-between between you and the state service of process notices so if your corporation or llc is sued or needs to appear in court for example so if an attorney is suing your company because their client slipped and fell at your business or fill in the blank the million ways you can get sued uh they are going to make sure that you're showing up and getting that documentation uh the third uh section here official federal government correspondents information notifications fourth bullet point tax forms and requests for payment and fifth bullet point request to complete permits company filings or reports so what that registered agent is doing is they're just making sure that you're compliant and you know crossing your t's dotting your eyes for your llc so the reason that's important too is you want a registered agent that is within the state lines so in your case you want to make sure that that resident agent i should be saying is in your state and i really just don't like the fact that they just kind of leave this very vague right so a lot of people they may end up like filling out section five here and saying you know it's my cousin sarah she's my resident agent because i'm gonna save a few dollars and i'm gonna put her information in here but she actually doesn't know what she's doing as resident agent maybe she's not forwarding you the correspondence or making sure that you're you know keeping up on your annual reports and when that happens what can happen is you have a crack in your llc so then when that attorney comes after your business what they'r
Thanks for your comment Noe Schwartz, have a nice day.
- Patricia Kuser, Staff Member
welcome to the channel guys today i'm going to go in great detail and talk about the three methodologies by which you can set up a limited liability company in the state of massachusetts now the first thing that you need to understand is the first methodology is based on the offline method the second is online the third is through a third party which i'm going to go in great detail and describe and give you the complete breakdown about now where you need to go and the first step is to a website called mass.gov this is the massachusetts official website for limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships now you need to understand what a limited liability is before you form a limited liability and today i'm gonna go in detail and give you a breakdown of what a limited liability company is now the assets that you have the wealth that you have you need to protect that wealth you need to protect that assets by forming a limited liability company you're able to protect your wealth and your assets how are you going to do that once you form a limited liability company the actual identity of your own and the identity of your organization is separated meaning if you are to be sued or you get into any trouble down the line your identity of your organization is going to be completely separate your wealth and your assets and your bank accounts are going to be protected and they will not be touched while on the other hand your organization and your business is the one that is going to go to court who's the one that needs to pay up the money and do all the other legal binding terms that are going to be given to them so a limited liability company is an unincorporated association that provides limited liability to its owners and members members are not personally liable for anything in the limited liability companies such as debts obligations or liabilities and members can take part in management and control of the llc without increasing their personal exposure beyond their contribution to the business like corporations llc are created by finding a certificate of organization with the secretary of the commonwealth and paying a fee the llc function under the terms of an operating agreement a document comparable to a partnership agreement and an llc must also file an annual report with the secretary of the commonwealth as well as you can see the secretary of the common website over here by clicking over here and it'll give you a complete breakdown and once you actually click on this it will take you to the next page now this is the limited liability company partnership now you can do it online by clicking here or do it offline getting the information in the forms once we click on it it will take us to the next page now this is the complete breakdown of the forms for the llc certificate of organization and the professional llc certificate of organization now the first thing that you need to do is you need to get a employer identification number now this is something which is very important guys because if you do not have an employer identification number which is known as a e i n you're unable to hire individuals for your organization now there's three steps that you need to understand and need to follow the first step is that you need to have an organization which is within the us or in the u.s territories the second thing that you need to do is that you need to complete the full documentation in one go and that is one of the reasons why you need to have a registered agent which i'm going to speak about in a second now you have 15 minutes per session to complete all the information and if you exceed the limit of 15 minutes you would need to start over again and that is why i recommend for you to have all your documentations in hand with you when you are actually applying for your ein and the third step is once the validations is done you will immediately be issued with your ein number you can print it you can save it and then you can actually hire individuals for your organization now the second step is the name for the limited liability company and the name has to be unique one of the common mistakes which a lot of young entrepreneurs tend to do when they're formal llc is the name of their business and the name of their website and the name of their social media handles are different please make sure that you are using the same name for all three of them it is difficult it is challenging to find a name that covers all the tracks but you have to make sure that you do find a name that works for you and you can get it for your website and for your social media handle the next thing is that you need to have a street address for your office in the commonwealth in the state of massachusetts at which their records will be maintained now this is a common mistake for people who are running ecommerce websites that want to form an llc that they don't actually get an office with a po box where mails could be sent where correspondence can be done but this is one of the requirements to form an llc that you need to have a physical place where your organization where your business exists that has an address where a correspondence can be done you need a latest date of resolution you need a business and address of the agent of service which is your registered agent we're going to talk about in a second the name and address of that individuals and obviously once all of that is done you'll be able to actually start your business now you can find it online by clicking over here once you click on file online it will take you to the next page over here you can actually put your customer id number and your pin and if you have not got information in regards to this you can click here forming a new identity once you click on it it will take you the next page where you can select the domestic profit corporation the domestic limited liability company or the domestic benefit corporation because we're doing it for a domestic limited liability company you will click on the certificate of organization and you can start providing all that information online and hopefully if you have everything in hand you will not face any problems now who is a registered agent and why do you need it every single llc corporation and non-profit is required to have an official registered agent sometimes that is called a statute agent the resident agent or an agent of service of process in each stage where you are doing business meaning if you're in the state of washington in the state of new york in the state of texas you need to have one registered agent in every single state they'll be taking care of your legal correspondence so the registered agent serves as a permanent physical presence in the state and the registers agent is the address where the state government can contact you with legal and tax correspondence including franchise tax forms notice the legislations required annual reports and every single legal requirement and they know how to respond back to the actual department what to reply back and when to reply back and how to reply back and once you're running an organizat
Thanks esaziV your participation is very much appreciated
- Patricia Kuser
About the author
I've studied atmospheric chemistry at Otterbein University in Westerville and I am an expert in space religion. I usually feel dark. My previous job was surgeons (md) I held this position for 24 years, I love talking about people-watching and wine making. Huge fan of Zooey Deschanel I practice athletics and collect sports memorabilia.
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