Keeping Your Business and Home Life Separate
Whether you’re dabbling in self-employment, or you run your own full-blown business, here’s a good example of why you might want to dissociate your business address from your home address… A process server showed up on our doorstep on a Sunday morning awhile back. What a nice Sunday surprise! No, they didn’t show up looking to serve papers on my wife or me. Rather, they were looking for the guy that used to own our house. As it turns out, he’s a home builder, and someone is suing him. While his business partner was listed as the registered agent, they ended up using his (our!) address as the physical address of their business. While we got a good laugh out of this, it certainly reinforced the idea of using a P.O. Box for business-related mail, and also using something besides your house as the physical address of your business whenever possible.
Published on January 30th, 2007 - 7 Comments
Filed under: Self Employment
email this article
- add to tip'd - stumble it - digg it - bookmark it
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
Related articles...
» Carnivals – Week of 02/05/07» From the Archives (January 27th – February 9th)
» More on the Home Office Tax Deduction
» The Best of January 2007
» Establishing Credit With a New Taxpayer Identification Number
» Joint or Separate Finances?
» Renting a Post Office Box
» Registering an LLC
Was this article useful? Please sign up to receive our content via e-mail:
Great deals...
Readers’ choice...
Recent articles...
- Did Congress Make the Homebuyer Tax Credit Retroactive?
- Congress Extends $8000 Homebuyer Tax Credit, Adds New $6500 Credit
- Lending Club Update - October 2009 Performance
- How Much to Budget for Car Maintenance?
- Series I Savings Bonds Now Paying 3.36%
- Use Weight Loss Strategies to Get Out of Debt
- Weekly Roundup - Disney Shanghai Edition
- How to Save Money on Vacations
- Most and Least Reliable Cars - 2009 Edition
- Get 100 Free Trades from OptionsHouse Brokerage
Recent comments...
- APRIL DAYS: I FOR ONE HOPE THAT THE FIRST TIME HOMEOWNERS TAX CREDIT IS EXTENDED BECAUSE...
- JB: I drive a 1999 car and save $60 a month for car repairs, oil...
- Greta: My significant other and I bought a house in February 2009. My boyfriend...
- Jay: Don't forget nCleaner 2nd for turning off widows firewall and windows defender...also use the...
- Bryan: @Doug - you said it... if you simply delayed the closing, it would have...
- Sympathetic Dish TSR: @ Bonnie: Is your HD tv a Flatscreen LCD style? If so then a...
- John DeFlumeri Jr: Thanks for explaining the tax credit. Too bad for those who purchase in...
- Hank: I always budget $100 a month for car repairs. I constantly find myself going...
Most talked about...
- Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math
- $8,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Dish Network Customer Service SUCKS
- How to Claim the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit
- $15,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Reduced Credit Limits? Share Your Experience
- Would the "Fair Tax" Gut the Economy?
- Tax Stimulus Rebate Payments to Start Early
- Pay Off Mortgage Early? Or Invest?
- The Best Online Savings Accounts (Updated!)
- Life's Too Short to Drink Cheap Beer
- $7500 First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit
Good idea about the PO Box. I expect to register my wife’s business this year and probably switch to a PO Box. Luckily, the post office is nearby and convenient.
Comment by Clever Dude — Jan 30th 2007 @ 8:33 amKeeping business and home life separate idea is good for business and home life.
Which will give you peace of mind and at the same time to the family. Good idea Nickel thanks..
Comment by Finance Guide 101 — Jan 30th 2007 @ 9:55 amI don’t think you can use a PO Box as the address for the registered agent, however. You’ll either have to pay someone to act as your reg. agent or use another “real” address.
Comment by Jonathan — Jan 30th 2007 @ 9:26 pmJonathan: Correct. We pay our attorney $50/year to serve as the RA.
My solution to this problem was to, instead of getting a PO Box, get a mailbox at The UPS Store (or one of its competitors). Since this will give your business a real street address, you can serve as RA for your company. Plus, there always will be live person available to sign for any packages you receive and having a real street address will allow you to receive shipments from anyone (some shippers won’t ship to PO Boxes). One added benefit is that it makes your business look more legitimate than listing a PO Box on your business card.
Comment by Steve — Jan 31st 2007 @ 5:45 pm