AccountingBLOCK - Tax and Accounting Forums

Hello all, I've about 25 websites that I plan on turning into e-commerce sites. Each website has a differnt name, however, a common market. How can I have them structured under one company ?

Example.

(The Sport Warehouse) This is the name of the PRIMARY corporation or company, for which the other companies (websites) are owned by.

(Baseball hut, Football hut, Hockeyhut ...etc) these would be websites/LLC's of that primary corporation. Each website would need to be legally protected, copyrights, logos.

I'm trying to structure this so that rather than doing taxes for (25) seperate LLC's, I can just have (1) company that does the taxes for websites A, B, C.


Someone mentioned to me that one could set-up ficticious names for each company, but then I was told that those companies wouldn't be protected.

Ok, Any replies would be greatly appreciated.

Create different company names for your own records but create one umbrella corporation for tax purposes. That way you don't have to get 25 different EIN to file taxes.

__________________
Zahid H. Lilani
Tax Accountant,
eZeeTAX, Inc.
http://ezeetax.com

Hello, and thanks for responding to my post. I dont understand what you mean by an umbrella corporation. Is that the same as a LLC ? What type of corporation do you recommend ?

Thanks for your time, its very helpful

Zahid references "umbrella corporation" in the subsidiary, branch or division context. For
n00wbies, his description begs elaboration. I interpret his suggested strategy as:

Form one business entity (Corp, LLC, etc), obtain Fed TIN, open bank account
in business name. Subsidiary implies multiple entities, division implies single entity.
"That way you don't have to get 25 different EIN to file taxes."

Note: Single Member LLCs are exempt from separate tax filing and may be treated as a division.

Separate the 25 websites into "divisions" (or "branches"). A division is an internal
method to segregate and track costs associated with a product or service. For example,
Mercury and Ford Tractor are divisions of Ford Motor Co. Though accounting for
Mercury or Ford Tractor production is, technically, a line item for Ford Motor Co.,
the accounting department will segregate income and expenses to reflect the
profitability for individual products within a single business entity.

In the web site context, division accounting offers management analysis tools
designed to detect profitable or unprofitable products. Division accounting is a 300
level accounting course and may be impractical for QB N00wbies. I recommend
Excel to track income and expenses related to each product line. Zahid may differ, his
forte is QB development.

As Pat commented in a previous post, Accounting is a process of artful recognition
of income and expense and compliance with governmental monetary regulations.

100 accountants rarely agree or disagree, they bicker.

Q To Zahid: QB is capable of mimicking division or branch segregation of income and expenses
for product accounting?

__________________

Thank you for your response. In short, should I apply for an LLC then ? Can you have an LLC with seperate divisions.

Corp vs LLC debate is complicated. Review AccountingBlock debate, Corp v LLC, in Video section.
http://www.accountingblock.com/video...-compared.html


Multiplemember LLC offers the ability to eliminate Self Employment Taxation (SET).
Single Member LLC is not entitled to avail of IRC 1402(a)(13) exemption from SET.

If your accounting inquiry is tax driven to:
1. eliminate employment related taxes and,
2. reduce income with business expense deductions
Then, division style accounting may be burdensome. If you want to carefully examine induvidual website
performance, division accounting may be assistive.

Corp v LLC, in short:
1. Yes, division accounting, in LLC form, is possible.
2. Zahid prefers S-Corps, Helse prefers LLCs. Pardon the Ambiguous answer.

Note: Corp or LLC creation expense estimate: less than $500.

__________________

Here's what i found,"umbrella corporations are not a category of corporation but instead are a way of structuring corporations to offer benefit either to the customer or to the corporate entities housed. "

__________________
accountant in Droitwich / tyre changers / playmobil / castors / warhammer tau

Hi,

I see there's a few answers about the legal side and having 25 businesses. You currently have 25 websites and they operate in similar markets, it would improve your listings in google if you put all the content onto one website domain, this can be done by setting up a 301 redirect from your other domains to the main one (usually best to use the one receiving the most traffic, established the longest). Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Chris

__________________
Access Dimensions

Regarding Umbrella Corporations:

Accountants are keenly aware accounting is divided into:
General Ledger
Accounting Taxation
Accounting Technology

An "Umbrella Corporation" (Holding Company) is not a legal phrase, nor an accepted tax term.
Corporations with wholly owned subsidiaries are often created to separate tax and/or general ledger considerations.

To confuse the phrase Umbrella "Corporation" modernly,
Publicly traded corporations prefer to create single member LLCs as "subsidiaries" or divisions.

__________________

I have a similar business model. I have one business name registered as an LLC, and this is the company I use for all of my purchasing, and carries all of my business credit. When I apply for credit from new vendors, I prefer to have one company that's been established to apply with. I then have 5 e-commerce websites, and registered each as a DBA for the LLC.