Starting a Business

When I moved over to TN from NC, I created a company called Quest Training, Inc. because my employer was willing to let me consult when I was not working for them as long as I always gave first priority to them.  I willingly agreed to that trade-off.  I also agreed to take vacation time but never sick leave for my consulting jobs.

My company was official from 1990 until 2015 when I retired.

One of the benefits of having a sub chapter S corporation is that I could flow all my income through my company, including expenses and that enabled me to substantially reduce my taxes.  The reason I was able to reduce my taxes was that every 3 out of 5 years, I showed a loss and that loss transferred over to my personal taxes by reducing them.

However, in order to play that game, I had to pay a CPA $2,000 each year to file my company and personal taxes as well as quarterly income and expense statements.

I never really calculated how much money I saw but my CPA during those 25 years that I only went in the hole on my taxes twice.  The rest of the time I was able to pay less taxes that I would have paid had I not had the company.  And, there were a half dozen years or more where I got money back because of company losses.

All I had to do was show at least one consulting contract each year in order to make my company a viable option for taxes.

For about 10 years, I worked for NIIT in New Delhi, India writing courses in business and project management for American Schools.  NIIT paid me directly and required that I maintain a home office as well.  All those expenses were deductible, including any and all computer devices, cell phones, and internet connections.

My company would lease a car and after 3 years, I would buy that car and lease it to my company.  Whenever we went on vacation, I would check out a couple of places for potential consulting work and reserve a meeting room at the resort to hold an annual meeting for my company, allowing the entire vacation to be written off as a business expense.

For those of you interested in starting a business, I thought you might enjoy reading my story.  I never did get a business license.  But, it cost me $500 in attorney fees to incorporate.

Good Luck!!!