Business Lawyer Answers YOUR Legal Questions | Responding to Your Comments!
hi we're gonna have a little fun today instead of my normal style of content we are going to go through some of your comments i'm going to respond to some of the comments and of course answer some of the great questions that you guys leave in my comments so don't go anywhere hi everyone i'm attorney aidan durham with 180 law co in colorado and welcome back to all up in your business before we dive into your comments don't forget to like subscribe and share and check the description for links to additional information and resources all right let's get into it so jlove asks if you have an llc with another member can you still just make member contributions and not do the loan option this was on my video how do i contribute money to my llc uh yeah it doesn't matter if there's one member or multiple members if you're giving money to the llc it can be either a member contribution or a loan to the llc if you don't want it to be alone then it can be a contribution deborah brittenham asks uh well she said aiden great information thank you debra thank you my question for you is after i formed the llc how do i obtain the insurance you mentioned i think it's very important to be protected also how can my son take over the business in the future if if it's formed as a single member llc so the first part how do you obtain insurance for your business talk to an insurance broker i suggest starting with whatever company or broker you have maybe your car insurance or your home insurance or renters insurance with whatever insurance company you already work with talk to them first and see if they offer some kind of if they offer business general liability insurance or professional liability whatever kind you need because of course we can get some bundled discounts or maybe some other benefits by sticking with the same company for all of our insurance policies if that doesn't work if they don't have those options available then look for a insurance broker in your area or talk to maybe some colleagues or friends who are in business and see who they may recommend but the answer is you'll want to work with an insurance professional i suggest an insurance broker who's not captive to one company so they can shop around and find you the best rates and the best policies that second question how can my son take over the business in the future this for the most part is an estate planning issue and interests in an llc our ownership interest in a single member llc is part of our uh it's an asset and when we die that asset becomes part of our estate and it will be distributed in accordance with our will or our trust or if none of those exist then in accordance with the intestacy laws in the state that you are a resident of so if you want to make sure your interest in an llc goes to a specific person then you want to talk to an estate planning attorney or a wills and trusts attorney someone who can help make sure that those directions and instructions are laid out properly so whatever you want to happen after you die will happen bria bria bria i'm going to go bria i hope i'm not mispronouncing that asks is the trademark application fee refundable if it is rejected no it's not that trademark application fee that we pay to the uspto is non-refundable doesn't matter what happens with the trademark after that if it gets registered then great but if it gets rejected or is otherwise not registered we do not get those fees back oh this one's nice ricardo says i came here for business advice and now i need a lawyer because you stole my heart good one ricardo that's pretty smooth deja asks i have a llc and i'm also a sole proprietor under my legal name i want to file my sole proprietorship as my trade name for my llc is that possible i want to file my sole proprietorship as my trade name for my llc so you certainly can register a trade name for your llc and if you're operating a sole proprietorship under that trade name you can register it under the llc but it won't it'll no longer be a sole proprietorship it'll be a trade name of the llc your surgery sister says never file in california it's 800 a year no matter what you're welcome can confirm it is at least 800 a year if you are registered as an llc in california uh if you can avoid it you know california is not necessarily the cheapest or easiest state to do business in however just because it's expensive doesn't mean you can get out of it if you are operating the business in california then you probably still need to register it in california and pay all of the associated fees but yep she's right it's at least 800 bucks no matter what shelby says finally the perfect video for what i was looking for and not super boring thank you i assume you mean it's only a little boring but at least it's not super boring thank you shelby i appreciate it rin two times asks i have my brand trademarked in tennessee but i just moved to mississippi working out of my home do i need to change the address on my trademark info before getting a business license in mississippi right ms that's mississippi missouri's mo yeah mississippi okay um so the these are two completely unrelated things i'm assuming you are talking about a state level trademark registration not a federal tread trademark registration but a business permit or a business license is independent of a trademark so it doesn't really matter you don't need to do one before the other um obviously i guess you do have to do one first just because that's how things work you can't do two things at the exact same time i don't think it really matters which one you do first i would i guess get the business license first that way you have that done before you start operating your business and then you can update the address on your trademark registration but if it is a state level registration in tennessee that state registration isn't going to extend to mississippi or any other states so it could very well be that that initial registration in tennessee is no longer going to be useful for you if you're not operating in tennessee anymore so i would suggest talking to an attorney who's licensed in mississippi or a trademark attorney like myself if you want a federal registration that will apply everywhere jack williams says what a golden's hand you've achieved nice job thank you thank you it's partly bronzer but yes i have been spending a lot of time at the beach i appreciate you noticing jack silent g asks what about review videos that use the trademark logo of the tool that is being reviewed so this question came up on the fair use video that i posted recently fair use in the context of that video has to do with copyrights but there is a concept of fair use that applies to trademarks as well it's kind of similar um but works in a different way the gist of it is if you're not using the logo as a trademark so if by reviewing a product and putting up the logo you're not using that logo as a source indicator of your video review you're not using it as a trademark the tool company uses it as a trademark but you're not so yeah if you're reviewing a product or a company if you're talking about some other company and you use their logo in that review typically that's not going to be a problem as long as you're again not using it as your own trademark and if you're not implying some kind of affiliation or endorsement or some false connection with that company with commentary product reviews most of the time this isn't going to be an issue i'm so confused whether i want to be a single member on the ein form but when i click that it's telling me that i would be a disregarded entity what is that okay so on the ein application if you're obtaining an ein through the irs as a single member llc the irs considers this a disregarded entity which is exactly what it sounds like they're disregarding the llc form and through the irs's eyes they're taxing you as if the llc doesn't exist they're disregarding the llc they don't care the irs doesn't care about limited liability they care about the income and taxes so they're taxing you as if you're a sole proprietorship which is the same in the tax world as a single member llc so you'll be taxed at the personal level on the profits and losses of the llc good question svt has asked why are you talking like that lol don't know that's how i talk why are you talking like that browning three two nine asks can you launch your podcast after filing an intent to trademark a an intent to use trademark or does it have to be fully trademarked so uh yes you can and should launch your podcast after filing an intent to use trademark application for your podcast whether it's your podcast name or whatever it is with an intent to use trademark application you have to start using the trademark before they'll actually register it because can you guys guess what i'm about to say a trademark isn't a trademark until it becomes a trademark the uspto won't register a trademark until it's actually being used in commerce because it's not a trademark until it's actually being used in commerce michael cmk1 would setting up for example five different businesses under a dba than a single member llc be a good idea setting up five different businesses under a dba than a single member llc i'm not quite sure what this is asking i think you are asking can you use five different dbas as opposed to an llc and would that be a good idea uh you can there's nothing inherently wrong with that if you're using a dba or a trade name without an llc then you're not getting any of that limited liability protection so is it a good idea if you don't care about your personal liability or if your liability risk or exposure is relatively limited then a dba or a trade name is you know it's not that big of a deal if you want to take some steps to protect your personal liability then then the llc is a better idea trucker man asks if i change the name of my llc certificate of change do i need to change the bank account is it going to be the new name on the check or the old one so if you change the name of your llc you'll want to let the bank know of that most banks i believe won't make you open a new bank account because it's still the same business just the name has changed and on checks that you're writing you should have the new name on any of the checks that you're issuing because that's the name of the business now so we want everything to have the correct name carlos f asks if i choose not to register my logo on my website and someone makes a claim do they have to first let me know via a cease and desist letter or can they just straight out sue me so i think what he's asking is if i don't register my trademark and someone tries to sue me for trademark infringement do they have to send me a cease and desist letter uh no someone can just jump straight to you know taking formal legal action most of the time though we're going to start with a cease and desist letter because most people want to avoid going through that whole legal process if possible and if a cease and desist letter can resolve the issue then great so no they don't have to but typically they do i have a dba and an llc and a registered entity trying to figure out if i should open a dba business bank account or llc account which would be better uh so the the banks don't distinguish between a dba account and an llc account as far as i know you can have a business bank account not sure what you mean though and a registered entity an llc is a registered entity and if the dba and llc are separate so if the dba isn't registered to the llc then i'd imagine those are two separate business operations so you should have two separate bank accounts did anyone ever tell you you look like sarah carter that right wing commenter commentator on fox news no never heard that not familiar with her i don't know what she looks like hopefully she's not unattractive thank you anyway if you do your taxes as partially self-employed does that automatically mean i will itemize or can you still take the standard deduction so yeah if you're self-employed uh you don't automatically have to itemize your deductions on your taxes you can still take a standard deduction uh necessary media in a comment to my video of the real benefits of trademark registration said i mean let's be honest it's worth it just to be able to flex the r registration symbol near your brand logo people love symbols so true that is sometimes a benefit just a small flex just a little ah i got a trademark registration i'm legit good point necessary media what would suffice as proof for money spent on food as a business expense we can show the purchase of the food but what would be used to prove it corresponds to a business expense okay so this was a comment on my video about tracking business expenses and um related to deducting business expenses on your taxes so how do you prove if you're deducting an expense for food how do you prove that that's business related great question there are different ways you can do it what i like to do if i'm let's say having lunch with a colleague or a potential client or if it's a business meal i will keep the receipt of course and i'll hand right on that receipt who i met with the purpose of the meeting maybe a quick note about what we discussed you can also do this in your bookkeeping software like if you use quickbooks you can upload a receipt i believe or scan a copy of the receipt to the program and make a note gorilla game says you're a 10. i assume he's talking on a scale of like one to a hundred so thank you just a kid from brooklyn has asked question if you do a member contribution to your llc are those funds taxable come tax time great question no a member contribution isn't considered taxable income to the llc i'm in the middle of creating my own name brand out of my youtube channel great support love for the youtubers uh and i'm thinking of getting it copyrighted and trademarked my question is if the source or the name of my business and our channel is already in the design of my logo that i would put on t-shirts would that be considered a trademark because the source or the name of my channel of my business is in the image or logo that i would be putting printing on shirts um yeah it it doesn't matter if the name is in the logo um if you're using the logo as a trademark then it would be considered a trademark um if your channel name if you're using your channel name for your channel that's also considered a trademark and you can use your trademark in any form that you want to on its own or within a logo so as long as it's a trademark then it's a trademark uh it's not a copyright though well i shouldn't say it's not it's probably not a copyright 99 out of 100 times with a logo it's a trademark not quite so often do copyrights apply to logos influential finance asked do all classes filed show up on the uspto site when you initially file or do you typically have to wait until your trademark gets reviewed by an attorney for your classes to appear so what he's asking about is when you submit a trademark application to the uspto and it goes into their public database do all the classes that you identified on the application show up initially uh yes there's some lag time between when you submit the application and when the details are on the public database but yeah all the info for the most part that you include on the application is going to be part of that database and it's going to be publicly available so all of the classes that you indicate on the application are going to be part of those records on the uspto database can i write llc after my dba name example my llc is registered as shoeshine llc my dba is shoes don't shine llc uh no that's not the proper way to uh use a dba your your dba shouldn't include the llc because it's not uh the dba isn't an llc the llc name includes llc so a llc doesn't protect your business name nope nope nope nope an llc does practically nothing to protect your business name the only way that it does kind of protect your business name is that it will prevent someone from forming an llc with that exact name in your state but filing or forming an llc has no effect on your trademark rights in that name and it won't prevent anybody else from using it outside of that very specific circumstance of someone using that exact same name in that same state all right i think that's enough for this round of responding and answering to your questions in the comments let me know if you guys enjoyed this i know you guys asked a lot of really great questions in the comments i wish i could respond to each of them individually i just can't it would be far too time consuming and frankly some of your questions are kind of confusing and a lot of the times the answer is i don't know or it depends i would need to get a lot more info from you in order to answer any of them so i hope it's a good way of addressing some of those common uh questions that you guys pose that's all for this episode folks drop a comment let me know what you think maybe i'll respond to it on the next one and again don't forget to check the description for links to additional information and resources thank you all so much for watching i'm aiden durham and i will see you next time [Music]
2021-08-28 14:33
