If you’ve decided to form a corporation or limited liability company (LLC) for your Wisconsin company, you’ve already made one of the most important business decisions you can make. Another crucial decision is whether you’ll form your new business entity yourself, hire an attorney to handle it for you, or opt for a business formation company.
Completing the formation process on your own will always be the most affordable option, but is it the best one? On the other end of the spectrum, hiring a lawyer will provide you with expert assistance, but the cost can be prohibitive for many startups. Somewhere in between these options are online business formation services. These companies can provide professional help while also saving you hundreds or even thousands of dollars compared to paying a business attorney.
If you’d like to learn more about your options for LLC or incorporation services for your Wisconsin business, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll walk you through a few of the best options for business formation services. Which one is the right choice for you?
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Let us at ZenBusiness handle your incorporation paperwork for as little as $0 + state fee so you can focus on building your business. Select your package to begin or learn more about our services.
The Best Wisconsin LLC and Incorporation Services
There are dozens of companies providing online business formation services, and many of them offer nearly identical packages. How do you choose the right one?
We welcome you to check out our comprehensive guide to the best LLC and incorporation services available, but we’ll also discuss a few of the most popular options for Wisconsin businesses right here.
ZenBusiness
We think ZenBusiness is the most well-rounded business formation service available today. It’s tough to beat the ZenBusiness pricing model, as we will form your business for free, as long as you pay your own state fee. In addition, ZenBusiness has outstanding customer feedback, with more than 10,000 reviews available online and nearly all of them being positive in nature.
At ZenBusiness, we believe in giving back to the communities we serve. ZenBusiness partners with Kiva.org to provide loans to low-income individuals, and also donates money to help build businesses owned by women and minorities. Doing good while providing helpful business services is the ZenBusiness way!
Northwest Registered Agent
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Northwest has a higher pricing model that costs $225 to form your LLC or corporation. What does Northwest Registered Agent do that makes them stand out? In short, Northwest has personalized customer service that goes beyond the support you’ll typically receive in this industry.
While most of its competitors have rather mediocre customer service departments, staffed by outsourced call centers, Northwest has highly trained professionals answering its phones at all times. These experts can help answer many tough questions that some competing companies’ support teams won’t have a clue how to answer.
In addition, Northwest also offers its customers a year of resident agent service. Unlike many competitors, Northwest locally scans every document it receives as your agent, while most other companies only scan the government forms they’re legally required to scan.
Incfile
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Along with ZenBusiness, Incfile is one of a very small handful of companies in this industry that will form an LLC or corporation with no service fees. All you need to do is pay your state’s fee and Incfile will take care of everything else. That’s not the only piece of good news we have regarding Incfile’s business formation services though.
Like ZenBusiness, Incfile also receives strong feedback from its customers, with around 34,000 positive reviews available online and just a few negative reviews.
However, Incfile has a couple of disadvantages as well. Most importantly, Incfile’s customer support team doesn’t always provide timely responses. In addition, Incfile has lots of upsells.
Should You Form a Wisconsin LLC or Corporation?
Common Characteristics
There are some common aspects of the LLC and the corporation, starting with the personal asset protection they both provide. Also known as limited liability, this personal asset protection ensures that if your business is sued, only the business assets are at risk. Meanwhile, your personal assets — like your house, car, personal bank accounts, investments, etc. — are protected by your LLC or corporation’s business structure.
In addition, LLCs and corporations both provide their owners with business name exclusivity. If you own and operate a sole proprietorship or general partnership, you will not have exclusive rights to your business name. Instead, if another company decides to use your name as its own, you won’t be able to stop them. In fact, they could even register your business name and gain exclusive rights to it, forcing you to come up with a new one.
Advantages of the LLC
In general, an LLC is quicker and easier to form than a corporation. LLCs usually need to provide less information for their formation documents than corporations do, and there are fewer steps in the process as well. For instance, LLCs don’t need to draft corporate bylaws, name officers or board members, hold initial board meetings, or issue stock. On the other hand, corporations need to do all of these things and more.
The LLC is also a less rigid business structure that allows its owners greater flexibility. The business structure of a corporation is inflexible, with many regulations dictating how the business should look and function. Meanwhile, LLCs have options for business management structure and ownership responsibilities that corporations simply don’t have.
Another even more valuable option LLCs have is that they can choose how they want to be taxed. Most LLCs are taxed as pass-through entities, which means the business itself does not pay taxes but the profits are passed through the LLC itself to its owners, who pay taxes on this money on their personal returns. However, LLCs can also opt to be taxed like corporations (either as a C corporation or an S corporation), giving them more options for taxation than a corporation has.
Advantages of the Corporation
Corporations have some advantages too, like the ability to sell stock. It’s quite difficult for an LLC to attract outside investments because it cannot issue stock. The vast majority of investors prefer stock as their investment medium, and it’s also very rare to see venture capitalists investing in LLCs. For these reasons, the corporation is a much better option for businesses looking to attract investments.
In addition, the corporation has been around for hundreds of years, while the LLC is a newer addition to the American business landscape. This means that the corporation has more established legalities, and also that it’s easier to expand into other states because the corporation’s structure is essentially the same no matter where you form it.
Hiring an Attorney to Form Your Wisconsin LLC or Corporation
If your business is especially complicated, or you simply prefer the peace of mind you get from having a qualified business attorney forming your entity, you could hire a lawyer instead of using a formation service. Hiring an attorney will definitely be far more expensive than using an online service, but you will receive the level of expertise and experience you can only get from a lawyer.
We took a look at a wide range of Wisconsin business attorneys to help you find the best person to help get your business up and running. To find reputable lawyers, we took a look at Avvo’s list of the top-rated lawyers in Wisconsin. Here are our top five choices in this state:
The Total Cost of Forming and Maintaining a Business in Wisconsin
In addition to the costs of a business formation service or hiring an attorney (which are optional, as we’ve discussed), there are quite a few other required and optional expenses when forming and maintaining a Wisconsin business.
You cannot form an LLC in Wisconsin without filing the Articles of Organization, or the document that officially registers your business within the state. Wisconsin charges a $170 fee for this filing on paper, or $130 online. Meanwhile, if you intend to form a corporation, you’ll submit the Articles of Incorporation instead. The filing fee for this document is just $100.
No matter what entity type you form, you’ll be expected to submit an Annual Report every year. This filing is pretty simple, but it keeps the state up-to-date about some vital information about your business, such as your registered agent and address. The base filing fee is $25, but there’s a $1 convenience fee if you file online.
Every business owner needs to register with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue for a $20 fee. Essentially, this process sets up your tax account (and it must be renewed for $10 every two years). After that, you’ll be set up to account for your income taxes each year. Like most states, Wisconsin has different rates for different taxation structures. But on top of state rates, you’ll also have to pay federal taxes, along with several others. For instance, if you have employees, you’ll pay unemployment insurance tax. If you sell goods or services, you’ll pay sales and use tax. Depending on the nature of your business, there could be other taxes required, so check with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue to make sure.
Other than that, the other potential expenses only apply to certain businesses. These include things like professional or industry-specific business licenses and business insurance.
Frequently Asked Questions About Wisconsin Business Formations
Before we wrap things up, here are the answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about forming LLCs and corporations in the state of Wisconsin.
What are the business tax rates in Wisconsin?
Wisconsin’s taxes largely depend on your taxation structure. Businesses taxed as corporations are subject to the state’s franchise tax, a flat rate of 7.9%. Meanwhile, businesses taxed as pass-through entities will pay rates ranging between 3.54% and 7.65%. Of course, C corporations will still be taxed at the federal rate of 21% (and so will your LLC, if you choose to be taxed as a C corp), while LLC profits are still subject to federal personal income tax brackets.
How long does it take to form an LLC or corporation in Wisconsin?
Business formation turnaround times vary considerably from state to state. Wisconsin takes approximately one business day to file online submissions and five business days for paper filings. If you need a quicker turnaround for a paper filing, the state offers expediting for $25.
How many small businesses are there in Wisconsin today?
There are more than 461,000 small businesses currently operating in Wisconsin, comprising all but 0.6% of businesses in the state. Roughly 49% of Wisconsin’s workforce is employed by one of these businesses.
What are the top official state resources for entrepreneurs?
The Wisconsin Small Business Development Center is a fantastic resource for Wisconsin small businesses at any stage of the game. The Center offers no-cost consulting, financing assistance, coaching, and much more. More than a dozen locations serve entrepreneurs across the state.
What sets Wisconsin apart when it comes to forming businesses?
Wisconsin is an all-around good place to start a business, with state laws that make it relatively easy to start and grow your business. We also appreciate that Wisconsin has a low sales tax. But for entrepreneurs, one of the biggest perks is that Wisconsin actually ranks in seventh place among states with the best access to funding. For a lot of businesses, a grant or loan can make or break the early days of making ends meet, so that’s a big benefit.
What else can online business formation companies do?
Companies like ZenBusiness and Incfile don’t stop after forming your LLC or corporation. These providers also offer many other services that can help your business save time and hassle. For instance, these companies can provide registered agent service, annual report service, EIN acquisitions, and much more.
In Conclusion
No matter which company you choose to form your new business — or if you opt to form your own, hire an attorney, etc. — we hope this guide helped you iron out some of the wrinkles regarding LLC and incorporation services in Wisconsin.