Maintaining your entity: Why you need a registered agent

In this episode of Coffee with Carl, attorney Carl Zoellner covers everything you need to know about maintaining your entity and registered agent. 

What does it look like to maintain an entity? 

First, let’s consider your registered agent. 

The purpose of the registered agent is intended to accept service of process. So if something happens in your business and you get sued, your registered agent is the one that receives notice of the lawsuit. 

Now there’s a few reasons you don’t want to be your own registered agent, not the least of which is, if you are your own registered agent, it’s usually a pretty straight line on who owns that entity. 

If you’re looking for any level of anonymity, your registered agent address and contact information is displayed directly on the Secretary of State website for everybody to see. If anonymity is your focus, don’t be your own registered agent. 

Number two, is there’s requirements to be a registered agent, such as, address in the state the business is registered in. You also have to keep normal business hours. Meaning you have that place and a person has to be available at those times so they can be served. 

And, you need to be over the age of 18 in most places. So that one’s usually not that big of a deal, because most people who are setting up businesses tend to be the age of majority, but just an fyi. 

So your registered agent service is something you should consider on an annual basis for your annual renewal, in this way you can figure that into the number that’s going to cost to maintain an entity. 

Overall, it’s more expensive to set up the entity than it is to maintain it. A great example of that is, my home state of Texas costs $308 to set up a business entity, actually costs zero to maintain it with the state, unless you’re going to have someone do your franchise reporting.

Most folks won’t be subjected to the franchise tax in Texas, ’cause it’s a pretty high amount before you have any sort of additional tax to pay. However, there is a reporting requirement. 

The Takeaway 

One thing you have to consider when you’re running the numbers is to make sure it’s the right investment for you and make sure you’re budgeting that into your annual expenses. 

So until next time, thank you for joining me with another episode of “Coffee with Carl.” If you do like this content, I would encourage you to subscribe and hit the like, so we can continue to make more content.