Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Applying for an EIN for my LLCMy partners and I registered an LLC in Delaware, and we live in California. It is an internet based company a...

Question

Applying for an EIN for my LLC

My partners and I registered an LLC in Delaware, and we live in California. It is an internet based company and there is no office and no employees - can we use a California personal address as the 'physical location' for filling out our EIN application as well as other applications?



Answer

Re: Applying for an EIN for my LLC

You need to be careful not to give the impression that you are conducting business in California. If you are, then you need to register your company with the Cal. Sec. of State as a foreign LLC and qualify it to do business here.



Answer

Re: Applying for an EIN for my LLC

Your company cannot exist in a vacuum. It has to be located somewhere and doing business somewhere.

If you decide it is located in Delaware, use your Delaware address. I'm sure Delaware requires you to have a registered agent there. So, if you lack any other address, use that.

If the decisions are being made in California, the money from revenues flows to California, the money to pay bills flows from California, etc., I would say the company is doing business in California and is liable to register here as a foreign LLC and pay the franchise tax. Using what you call your "personal address" for your federal EIN will be just another element of evidence that California registration was required.

One sometimes-useful test of what state you're doing business in is to ask yourself, if your LLC needed to sue a national company, and thus had your choice of forum states, where would the LLC file suit?



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