You Don’t Need an ITIN to Bring Your Company to the US
I recently have received several inquiries about whether a foreign company or its owners need an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) when they bring their business to the US. The answer is, “No.” The rest of this post explains why that is the case.
When a company wants to do business in the US, it needs an EIN (Employer Identification Number).
For a foreign or foreign-owned company, obtaining an EIN can be intimidating. This is especially true if the principal officer lacks a US social security number. (The EIN cannot be obtained quickly and easily online.)
Do I Need a Separate Corporation/LLC for My New Business?
Recently I have received questions from entrepreneurs who are starting a second line of business. They want to know whether the new business should be under the same legal entity – perhaps with a separate fictitious business name (FBN – or DBA for “doing business as”) – or under a separate corporation/LLC.
This is not really a legal issue: Either approach can work just fine. The differences between the two approaches are business-oriented.
Fair Use, Trash Talk, and the DMCA
Over the weekend, I answered a LinkedIn question [no longer available there because LinkedIn ended its Q&A feature] about whether posting a copyrighted photo of another company’s product with disparaging comments about that product might be protected by the “fair use” defense to copyright infringement. I am reproducing the question and answer, in edited form, below.
Q. My website is copyrighted and the newest product is trademark and patent pending. The image was “clipped/copied” by an individual and placed on a website without my permission to do so. Am I right that this is not “fair use” of my work?
A. The “Fair Use” Defense: One Term, Two Different Meanings discusses the four elements of copyright fair use. The analysis always is highly fact-specific, so it is difficult to say whether use on cpaptalk.com qualifies for that defense, but I think there is a reasonable argument that it does.
California doesn’t *always* prohibit non-compete provisions
California is well-known for refusing to enforce non-compete provisions, especially in the post-employment context (see Choice-of-Law and Non-Compete Provisions), so individuals will not be deprived of gainful employment. But provisions limiting competition aren’t always taboo. (more…)
