Determining what legal form your business should take is one of the first questions you have to answer when starting your business. There is no right or wrong answer. The key is to understand the available options and determine what best fits your needs.

There are four main ways that you can organize your business:

• Sole proprietorship
• Partnership

Benefit One: Limited Liability
The big legal benefit that corporations provide business owners with is liability protection. What this means, practically speaking, is that the business owners are not liable for the debts of the business merely by virtue of their ownership.

However, to best understand what this limited liability protection means, you need to consider the situation that exists with respect to businesses that are un-incorporated.

In a sole proprietorship, for example, the proprietor is responsible for all the debts of the business.

As a small business, there are several different taxes you will need to be aware of. Failure to pay and collect appropriate taxes can cause a lot of trouble with the IRS.
• Self-Employment Tax
• Employment Taxes (if you employ people in the USA)
• C Corporation and S Corporation Taxes
• Sales Taxes
Note: You will also be eligible for Tax Deductions (e.g. Home Office deductions etc.).

I’d like to hear what you’ve got to say about business tax. Please leave a comment…

A recent New York Times article estimates that as much as 80% of spam messages are sent out by the computers of ordinary individuals who have no idea their computers have been converted into ‘zombies’.

A zombie computer is one infected with malware that silently sends out thousands of emails from the owner’s email address.

Infected ‘zombie’ computers, are organized by spammers into small groups called botnets. The ‘zombie’ malware threat is expected to continue to grow both in number and variety over the next few years.