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Thread: Side Business

  1. #1
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    Side Business

    Looking for some advice from others that may or have in the past done something similar. I am currently reading, studying and preparing to tune my car. I also am looking to start a business out of my hobby for tax reasons. Tuning seems the perfect business model for me. Once I have become comfortable with tuning my own cars I would like to offer to tune others and charge accordingly. Not looking to make a career change just would like the opportunity to support my own habit some what.

    My questions are as follows:
    1. In general do you obtain a local business license? If so, one of the options in FLA is mobile mechanic just not sure if I want to be considered doing mechanic work.
    2. If licensed and not mechanic what would it be called?
    3. Insurance/Liability?
    4. Use a waiver form of any kind?

    Again, not looking to be a full time tuner or make a career. Just a small side venture with opportunity to cover some of my own expenses and have some fun but be above board.

    Roger

  2. #2
    Advanced Tuner Rockrz's Avatar
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    You might consider incorporating in Nevada to protect your personal assets in the event of a lawsuit. Just having someone sign something saying they agree to hold you harmless if something quits working... or if they kill someone from driving fast, does not protect you from greedy lawyers who could be hired by someone's family to sue everyone in sight.

    Incorporating in Nevada provides protection of your personal assets as their corporate shield has never been pierced in Nevada except in cases of fraud. All expenses for getting setup as a Nevada Corporation as well as being registered in your state as a foreign corporation is all a tax write off.

    This is one of those things that you may never need, but if you ever did you'd be very, very glad to have it cause lawsuits can easily cause the losss of your personal stuff since going to court is always unpredictable.

    Most states require you to sign up to report sales taxes and you can call your county courthouse to ask if your county requires you to register as a business with them. I'd think city hall in your city could tell you if you need to register with your city (many times it pays to be out in the country...)

  3. #3
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    Plan on LLC but the Nevada idea is very interesting...thank you!

  4. #4
    Advanced Tuner Rockrz's Avatar
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    Yeah, if you'll notice... almost all of the big corporations are incorporated in either Nevada or Delaware

    Back in 2004 we incorporated in Nevada because as I was researching this I found info online saying the only time someone did become subject to their personal assets being taken was in cases of them committing fraud.

    I did find that some private individuals incorporating in Delaware had lost personal assets thru lawsuits for reasons other than fraud so it looks like Nevada was a safer place for small companies where private individuals own the corporation.

    There is a boatload of info about all this on the net and there are lawyers out there who provide free initial phone consultation so after reading a bunch of info and calling a few of these lawyers with questions you should be able to get a pretty good picture of how you can setup legally to best protect yourself and your personal assets to keep those separate from your business interests.

    Hey, when you make your fist million... remember us little guys

  5. #5
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    So you are going to try to tune one car then tune for hire. Good luck with that.

  6. #6
    Advanced Tuner Rockrz's Avatar
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    Nah, he's gonna do what all the expert tuners do.... start where he's at now and learn and grow from there.

  7. #7
    Advanced Tuner Rockrz's Avatar
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    I started doin stuff for money

    So, you go to your county courthouse and file a DBA "Ding Business As" which is registering in your country under whatever business name you decide to use. When you do this, you will get an official form from your county that says you have registered your business wit the county

    Then, you take that form you got from the county to your bank and tell them you want to open a bank account in that name. This is so customers can write a check to your business name instead of to you, which makes you like like a bidness and not just some guy sellin stuff.

    At this point you are a "Sole Proprietor" and at this point you might want to call the IRS and get a 9 digit Federal Tax ID Number (EIN) so anytime someone wants identification (like vendors) you can use your EIN instead of your social security number (you do not want to be giving people your SS number on account of it ain't they bidness)

    So with your new DBA having been filed with your county, bank account opened in your new DBA name, and EIN number obtained - you can accept payments by in your new DBA name (which is your new company name) and deposit them to your bank account - and you can start a Pay Pal account in your new business name so people can pay you online using their credit card, debit card, or their bank account

    So you'll also be able to write thing off your taxes and when you file yo taxes you'll be filing as a sole proprietor (CPAs can help wit dat)

    Now, since you will be tinkering with people's cars, it's possible something could break and you could get sued in court. If they win a big judgement against you they can take your personal assets under court order - so you might want to incorporate so you can keep your personal assets and company assets legally separated. If you were a corporation and they win a big settlement against you, then they can only take assets belonging to yo corporation but that's only if you incorporate in Nevada or in Delaware which can easily be done online without ever leaving your house.

    From their you might want to have an attorney help you write up a sales invoice to have people sign BEFORE you tune their ride where they are agreeing to hold you harmless and free of all legal and financial liability for any damage that may be done to their vehicle while it's being tuned cause you know how cars can have mo problems one moment and then they next moment something goes wrong - if this happens while you are tuning, they will probably say it was your fault.

    So, it's good to have a plan in place to counter lawsuits before they happen.

    So there's a short run down on things you can do in order to open a bidness and there's plenty of resources online about all this as well.

  8. #8
    Advanced Tuner Rockrz's Avatar
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    No problem... that'll be 58 cents please!

    Yep, it's always good to try and be prepared for the unexpected these days.

  9. #9
    Tuner in Training Dmace1970's Avatar
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    And thing can go wrong in a hurry....I was doing a simple tune to my besties S10, my laptop gliched and locked up his ECU...
    Luckily he had a spare ECU and I had a copy of his original tune but it end up costing me $250 cdn to get him running again.
    Sucky day for sure!! but thats the things you should prepare for. I'm not saying dont try a business, just be prepared

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dmace1970 View Post
    And thing can go wrong in a hurry....I was doing a simple tune to my besties S10, my laptop gliched and locked up his ECU...
    Luckily he had a spare ECU and I had a copy of his original tune but it end up costing me $250 cdn to get him running again.
    Sucky day for sure!! but thats the things you should prepare for. I'm not saying dont try a business, just be prepared
    Yup, you definitely start to realize why shops charge $600-1000 for a tune that took them an hour or two to complete the first time you oopsie something and need to cover an ecm, a license or some other funky scenario.
    It doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to be done in two weeks...

    A wise man once said "google it"

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill@HPTuners View Post
    Yup, you definitely start to realize why shops charge $600-1000 for a tune that took them an hour or two to complete the first time you oopsie something and need to cover an ecm, a license or some other funky scenario.
    If you figure all the man hours you spend tuning your own car, especially if it's a new platform, you'd be way better off financially paying $1000 for a tune. That said, there's satisfaction in building and tuning your own cars that you just can't get by having a shop do your fabrication or plugging in an RTD and flashing someone else's work.