Читать книгу Run Your Own Corporation - Garrett Sutton - Страница 53

Tom and Nancy’s first day was a good one. Eight months previous they had put in a bid for the civil engineering of a small sewer plant in Chase Fields. They had not heard anything since and had forgotten about it. That morning they received a call saying they had won the bid. Tom mentioned they were now a professional corporation and asked if the Chase Fields contract could be in their corporate name. The project manager said that was not a problem and asked them to come in and sign it.

Tom, Nancy and Dooger the Great Dane drove down to the construction office. After letting Dooger romp around the lot, the humans got down to the signing. The contractor said he liked their company name – Green Engineers – and commented how funny it was that amongst all the green environmental wannabes their last name was actually Green. The project manager wrote a check out to Green Engineers, P.C. for the first progress payment.

Tom and Nancy were driving back to their home office in a good mood. They had their first job since the lawsuit and a check in their new corporate name to prove it. Nancy suggested they stop by their bank and cash the check. They could certainly use the money.

When they entered the bank and presented the check to the teller there was confusion. Tom and Nancy had an account opened in the name of their living trust, The Green Family Living Trust. But the teller noted this was made out to Green Engineers, PC. Did they have an account in that name? Tom explained that they had an account at the bank. What else did they need?

The branch manager quickly came over. In a somewhat smug manner he explained that because the check was made out to a corporation they would need to open a corporate account. To do that they would need to bring in a copy of the corporation’s articles of incorporation filed with the state and the company’s EIN. Nancy asked what that was. The manager explained with exasperation that the Employer Identification Number, or EIN, was issued to corporations, LLCs and other entities by the IRS. It was akin to a Social Security Number for a business. Under the rules, they couldn’t open a corporate bank account without one.

Nancy grew a little exasperated herself. They needed to cash the check right away. The manager said Nancy could go online to the IRS website and promptly get an EIN. Or the attorney preparing their corporation could get it for her. But until then, they couldn’t cash the check. At that point Dooger, who had been waiting outside, burst in through an open door and created a big commotion. The teller, who always had a cookie ready for the lovable dog, happily squealed his name. The branch manager, however, was quite upset by it all, and so Tom and Nancy decided to leave with the cookie munching pooch in tow.

After leaving the bank, Tom called their attorney Katherine to inquire as to the status of the filing and how they could cash the check. Katherine replied that she had just received in record time the license documents from the State Engineers Division she needed for filing a professional corporation. She was sending it all in that day and she estimated that it would take another week to ten days to get the corporate paperwork back from the Secretary of State’s office. Until then, they couldn’t cash the check.

Tom and Nancy finally gave into the fact that they weren’t going to get at their money right away. Katherine then explained there was a procedure for getting money out of a corporation. They would either do it as a salary payment (with payroll taxes and income taxes withheld) or as a distribution. In either case, they had to follow proper accounting procedures. Katherine asked if either of them had any bookkeeper experience. Nancy knew where the conversation was headed and said they would be hiring a bookkeeper.

As they continued driving home, Nancy asked Tom to drive through a commercial district near their neighborhood. Nancy had seen the bold red sign many times as she drove by. Now it was time to stop in at....

Betty’s Bookkeeping