Do the activities of my LLC need to be limited to a particular field?
No. When you file your Articles of Organization, simply state that your business will operate under the law. You don't need to give any further specification.
Thank you for the pointers! Did you find it necessary to hire an attorney to set up your llc? Have you found any real down-sides with the llc option? It seems to be great in most circumstances from what I'm reading/hearing, there must be some negatives. The only thing the book advises to do is to start an LLC that invests in real estate, then deduct everything you do as a business expense related to investing in real estate. Going on a vacation to Hawaii?  Deduct it, you were checking out real estate.  And so on and so forth. If the business activities are closely related you could combine them into a single Schedule C, but in your case it sounds like it should be two separate Schedule C's. The loss from one will offset profit from the other, and your self-employment and income taxes will be based on the net of the two businesses. Any business can generate losses, make sure your expenses are reasonable and documented, there are plenty of resources out there for helping you decide which expenses are proper for each business. There is some truth to the warning that not showing profit in 2/5 of years can raise flags at the IRS, and they may deem your business a hobby, which disallows losses. That is not a hard rule, legitimate businesses can lose money for years on end without issue, if you're trying to make money at it, you'll likely be fine. "I have done similar software work. You do not need an LLC to write off business expenses. The income and expenses go on Schedule C of your tax return. It is easy to write off even small expenses such as travel - if you keep records. The income should be reported to you on a 1099 form, filled out by your client, not yourself.  For a financial advisor you should find one you can visit with personally and who operates as a ""fee-only"" advisor. That means they will not try to sell you something that they get a commission on. You might pay a few $hundred per visit. There are taxes that you have to pay (around 15%) due to self-employment income. These taxes are due 4 times a year and paid with an ""estimated tax"" form. See the IRS web site, and in particular schedule SE. Get yourself educated about this fast and make the estimated tax payments on time so you won't run into penalties at the end of the year." An LLC is a very flexible company when it comes to taxation.  You have three basic tax options: There are other good reasons to create an LLC (mainly to protect your personal assets) so even if you decide that you don't want to deal with the complications of an S-Corp LLC, you should still consider creating a sole proprietorship LLC. If i am not wrong, any business activities such should be declared on Year End Tax filing. If your friend is going to own that website either it is commercial or nonprofit, he has to declare in the year end taxation. Registering it as an LLC turns it into a business, and will have to be maintained regardless of whether you do any actual business with it or not. Strictly speaking, it also doesn't necessarily grant you any specific protections against the use of the name. Small business names are notoriously hard to protect when they are active. If you aren't actually using it, a judge is more likely to not rule in your favor. A regular Trademark isn't what you're looking for either. That is more for business product line names and similar.  What you're looking for is a Registered Trademark (®), which is a federal legal designation disallowing other businesses from using your name or business branding. See [this article](http://smallbusiness.chron.com/differences-between-copyright-trademark-registration-780.html) for more information. "One thing I would add to TTT's answer: One of the benefits of using an LLC for your business is right there in the name - ""limited liability"". It provides a level of protection for your personal assets should your business go bankrupt, get sued, and so forth. However, if someone can show that there's no real separation between your LLC's activities and your personal activities, then they can ""pierce the corporate veil"" and go after your personal assets. If this loan is really purely personal and not related to your business activities, you may create a paper trail that can later be used in this way. My advice would be to just avoid the whole thing and make the loan from personal funds. I don't see any upside to doing this out of the LLC funds." Get another LLC.  Not that hard and well worth it.  I have one business endeavor but have 3 different LLC's to handle the three different aspects of it.  That way, should something go wrong with one of the three (and it has in the past), I can kill it without hurting the entire operation.  Then start another LLC to take over the aspect of the operation that was killed. I'm not sure 1099-MISC is what you should expect. Equity means ownership, and in LLC context it means membership. As an LLC member, you'll get distributions and should receive a K-1 form for tax treatment, not 1099 or W2. If the CEO is talking about 1099 it means he's going to hire you as a contractor which contradicts the statement about equity allocation. That's an entirely different situation. 1) Specifically, would the 1099-MISC form be used in this case? 1099-MISC is used to describe various payments. Depending on which box is filled, the tax treatment may be as of employment income (subject to SE taxes) or passive income (royalties, rents, etc - subject to various limitations in the tax code). 3) If this is the only logical method of compensation (receiving a % of real estate sales), how would it be taxed? That would probably be a commission and taxed as employment income. I suggest to get a professional tax adviser consultation on this issue, with specific details, numbers, and kinds of deals involved. You can get gain or lose a lot of money just because you're characterized as a contractor and not LLC member or employee (each has its own benefits and disadvantages, and you have to consider them all). 4) Are there any advantages/disadvantages to acquiring and selling   properties through the company as opposed to receiving a % of sales? Yes. There are advantages and there are disadvantages. For example, if you're using a corporation, you can get salary, if you're a contractor you cannot. There are a lot of issues hidden in this distinction (which I've just discussed with KeithS in this argument). Through your question and then clarification through the comments, it looks like you have a U.S. LLC with at least two members.  If you did not elect some other tax treatment, your LLC will be treated as a partnership by the IRS.  The partnership should file a tax return on Form 1065.  Then each partner will get a Schedule K-1 from the partnership, which the partner should use to include their respective shares of the partnership income and expenses on their personal Forms 1040. You can also elect to be taxed as an S-Corp or a C-Corp instead of a partnership, but that requires you to file a form explicitly making such election.  If you go S-Corp, then you will file a different form for the company, but the procedure is roughly the same - Income gets passed through to the owners via a Schedule K-1.  If you go C-Corp, then the owners will pay no tax on their own Form 1040, but the C-Corp itself will pay income tax. As far as whether you should try to spend the money as business expense to avoid paying extra tax - That's highly dependent on your specific situation.  I'd think you'd want to get tailored advice for that. This depends on the state law. In case of the State of New York - these are the criteria for sourcing the NY income: As a sole proprietor or partnership, your New York source income   includes: Business activities As a nonresident sole proprietor or partnership, you carry on a   business, trade, profession, or occupation within New York State if   you (or your business): As you can see, the qualification depends on the way you do business, and the amount of business transactions you have in New York. If it is not clear to you - talk to a CPA/EA licensed to practice in the State of New York to give you an advice. Form 10-K is filed by corporations to SEC. You must be thinking of form 1065 (its schedule K) that a partnership (and multi-member LLC) must file with the IRS. Unless the multi-member LLC is legally dissolved, it must file this form. You're a member, so it is your responsibility, with all the other members, to make sure that the manager files all the forms, and if the manager doesn't - fire the manager and appoint another one (or, if its member managed - chose a different member to manage). If you're a sole member of the LLC - then you don't need to file any forms with the IRS, all the business expenses and credits are done on your Schedule C, as if you were a sole propriator. "IANAL, but if you're planning to sell shares in your LLC you may be disappointed in the protection granted. I looked into this corporate structure for the same purpose myself, and my attorney said something like, ""If an owner of one of the shares of your company is driving to look at one of the properties, and gets into a wreck for which they were found negligent, the injured party can sue the corporation.""" "Two points:    One, yes -- the price of gold has been going up. [gold ETF chart here](http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&amp;chdd=1&amp;chds=1&amp;chdv=1&amp;chvs=maximized&amp;chdeh=0&amp;chfdeh=0&amp;chdet=1349467200000&amp;chddm=495788&amp;chls=IntervalBasedLine&amp;q=NYSEARCA:IAU&amp;ntsp=0&amp;ei=PQhvUMjiAZGQ0QG5pQE)  Two, the US has confiscated gold in the past.  They did it in the 1930s.    Owning antique gold coins is stupid because you're paying for gold + the supply / demand imbalance forced upon that particular coin by the coin collector market.  If you want to have exposure to gold in your portfolio, the cheapest way is through an ETF.  If you want to own physical gold because a) it's shiny or b) you fear impending economic collapse -- you're probably better off with bullion from a reputable dealer.  You can buy it in grams or ounces -- you can also buy it in coins.  Physical gold will generally cost you a little more than the spot price (think 5% - 10%? -- not really sure) but it can vary wildly.  You might even be able to buy it for under the spot price if you find somebody that isn't very bright willing to sell.  Buyer beware though -- there are lots of shady folks in the ""we buy gold"" market."