Whether you are a startup company in Sunnyvale or a family owned business in San Jose, as an employer, you will have some basic employment concerns. In my previous two blogs, I discussed risks in looking for employees and evaluating potential applicants. This blog focuses on reference checks, both for…
In my previous blog, I discussed the risks faced by companies that are looking to hire new employees. This blog focuses on issues employers need to be concerned with once they have found some candidates and need to choose between them. Once you are ready to interview candidates, you still…
Silicon Valley’s job market heats up even as national employment stalls, thanks to an increase in venture capital and personal investing. Large corporations are competing with small businesses and start-ups for talent. Although some of my business clients are start-up companies where the founders are the only employees, more and…
The standard mileage rate is very important to my business clients because it is not only the rate at which they can deduct miles driven for business use, but it is also often the rate at which the businesses have agreed to reimburse their employees for miles driven on the…
I recently did a blog about California clients wanting to form LLCs outside of California in order to avoid California franchise taxes, and how the Franchise Tax Board has been steadily trying to eliminate those possibilities. In response to that blog, I was asked about other non-tax considerations for choosing…
In negotiating a recent acquisition for a client selling a business in Santa Cruz, we were presented with a letter of intent outlining the terms of the transaction. The letter was well-constructed, and contained the material aspects of the deal, all of which were nonbinding. There were, however, a number…
I was recently working with some doctors who co-owned their Sunnyvale medical office building. They were concerned about the liability of having the property in their own names, so we worked with their lender and transferred the property into an LLC. Then, I suggested forming a professional corporation to operate…
I was talking to a client in Cupertino this week about helping his friend with a start-up business in San Jose. Originally, my client wanted to form a corporation online by himself, but he was not sure if the company should be an S corporation (“S-corp”) or a C corporation…
I was recently asked by a Cupertino real estate investor whether he should form his limited liability company in Nevada or some other state in order to avoid California taxes. I had to tell him that if anything, this would just increase his overall costs and taxes. California franchise taxes…
Bridge financing for Silicon Valley start-up companies is a fairly standard, relatively inexpensive method to raising money pending a larger investment round. This type of financing is typically provided in the form of debt that converts into shares issued in the next funding round, often at a discount from the…