Ask HN: What's your legal business structure and why?

2 points by kixxauth 3 years ago | 1 comment

Within the startup scene / indie hacker movement there is plenty of discussion about raising money (or not), marketing, building, hiring, etc. But I don't see much about the legal structure of the company.

I plan to keep my day job, but there are some things I'd like to build and invest in on the side: A couple SaaS ideas, maybe purchase some community sites, and maybe take funding someday.

LLC or C corp? Can I roll my Roth into it? Does a holding company make sense? What exit pain points could I avoid by structuring it a certain way?

What good resources are out there to learn?

powerbroker 3 years ago |

At one point I knew a lot about this. I vaguely remember, from old law school classes, that C Corp. makes it easy to create shares and invite more investors in. Further, it shields the shareholders from direct liability from many miss-deeds of the corporation, so long as the corporate meetings were systematically held, and decision making done per the shares held (usu. for electing board members).

Downside, is that taxes are trickier, as theoretically, the corporation is taxed once on profits, and the shareholder is taxed again on making gains/dividends. FYI, this is not legal advise, and I'm quite likely wrong on a point or two.