The Right Business Structure for Your Pet Care Business

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I was visiting a pet care forum tonight and answered a question from a new business owner about the choice of business structure. By chance I then visited Technorati to find other blogs on pet care businesses and ran into a great article series on business structures by a pet lawyer. So I figured it was providence and now must be a great time to write a short article on my blog about this subject!

Most of us start our pet businesses as sole proprietors and partnerships. This type of structure is very simple as it doesn’t require any paperwork to be filed and we can claim file our business taxes on our personal tax return. I still run my pet sitting business as a general partnership with my husband.

Lately because my business is growing I have been considering changing to an Limited Liability Company as this structure gives more financial protection to the owners and still allows me to claim business expenses against my personal taxes. Looking around at other pet care businesses online I found that the LLC is the most common structure being used by small pet businesses. I have bought a book on LLC’s by but haven’t had the chance to dig into it yet.

Laurie Kadair is a pet lawyer in Louisiana and has three very easy to understand posts about choosing a suitable structure :

Choosing a Structure for your Pet Care Business - Part 1

Choosing a Structure for your Pet Care Business - Part 2

Choosing a Structure for your Pet Care Business - Part 3

You can also find more information at the Small Business Adminstration website with forms for your state. Most of these structures except the sole proprietorship and partnership require that you conduct your business in accordance with the demands of the business structure. If the business is not run correctly and proper paperwork kept you may lose your right to operate under that structure. Make sure you understand the implications of each structure before jumping in with both feet. You shoud also discuss the implications with your business accountant.

Laurie also has some other great articles at www.lapetlawyer.com. I need to feature a pet lawyer as an unusual pet care career in a future post!



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  1. Pet Care » Blog Archive » The Right Business Structure for Your Pet Care Business on October 30, 2007 1:44 am

    [...] Danielle Chonody wrote an interesting post today on The Right Business Structure for Your Pet Care BusinessHere’s a quick excerptI was visiting a pet care forum tonight and answered a question from a new business owner about the choice of business structure. By chance I then visited Technorati to find other blogs on pet care businesses and ran into a great … [...]

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