Owner Operator discussion

I promise I won't sue you guys if your advice turns out bad. haha.

Well, the education continues... I was feeling pretty good about myself just getting passed setting up authority, IRP, intrastate, UCR, IFTA, drug consortium, yada, yada... but am quickly finding out I still have a lot to learn.

I guess for now and likely a long while here my sole proprietership, saving my reciepts and keeping some good spreadsheets will serve me just fine. I really don't have much in the way of asset's to protect, no worries there !

 

I am using Quicken Home & Business. You can set up your chart of accounts and everything in there for a Sole-proprietor rather easily.

Plus at tax time, if your chart of accounts is set-up correctly, it's a direct feed into Turbo tax and your taxes are completed in less time than it took to type this.

I used Quickbooks Pro before and I was rather miffed that I paid a tax guy $450 to file my corporate taxes when I saw I had already done them for him by doing that.

 

If you buy a truck you will need to pay the 2290 tax. In order to pay it the IRS now requires a FEIN, even for a sole proprietorship. If you plan on setting up a corporation at a later date, you would better off doing it from the beginning. As you get into your business you will begin to build a reputation. Brokers and shippers will know you by your company name and FEIN. If you start out as a proprietorship and later incorporate or form an LLC, etc., you will need a new FEIN. That means that you will need to change your MC information and sign new contracts with everyone whom you have been doing business. It will be like starting from scratch with no business history. You will need to either use your social security number of FEIN in order to apply for authority. When you get your authority your information becomes part of the public domain. In other words, anyone can see your information. I would not want anyone to have my social security number.

If it were me, I would start with whatever business structure that I planned to evolve. It can avoid confusion and save some paperwork in the future.