DBA or LLC for new business?
I am starting a new business, I will be the only owner. Should I start out as DBA or LLC? What would be the best way to go?
Dear Wendy,
We highly recommend that you consider going the LLC route. An LLC will offer you liability protection for your personal assets that a DBA will not. In short, registering a DBA would only give you a registration for a name under which you transact business as an individual (sole proprietor), it will not start a separate company.
On the other hand, starting an LLC forms a company that is as entity separate from you as a private person. This separation is crucial as it ensures that in your business you risk only that which your business owns and not the possessions that you own as a person, such as your home, for example. An LLC is relatively easy to maintain and requires no more than opening a separate bank account, filing a short annual report (just a simple form usually) every year, and, of course filing of a tax return. But even these additional steps are well worth the benefits of doing business as a limited liability company.
