Are you in a rush to have your Virginia LLC or Virginia corporation approved or to receive approval to transact business in Virginia?  The typical processing time at the State Corporation Commission is 17-21 days, which may be too long when you have a contract awaiting signature or an opportunity that has a deadline.

To speed things along, you may want to consider expedited services.  Expedited services are available for many business entity documents filed in the Clerk’s Office including initial filings by corporations and limited liability companies, applications for authority to transact business in Virginia, amendments, mergers, withdrawals, cancellations, and terminations. The service also includes preclearance of certain documents before they are actually submitted for filing.

Expedited service is not available for filing of UCC financing statements, annual reports, service of process, and requests for copies of recorded documents. Fees range from $50 to $200 depending on the document type and the requested turn around time.

Next day service is available for all elibible documents at an added fee of $100.00.  Same day service is available for eligible documents that are received in the Clerk’s Office by 12:00 noon for an added fee of $200.00.  I rarely recommend same day service because in reality the result is not appreciably different for that extra $100 fee. For an additional $25, the Clerk’s Office will fax you evidence of an expedited document’s filing upon its acceptance.

To request expedited service, you must use the State Corporation Commission’s Expedited Service Request Form which can be downloaded from the Clerk’s website.  The form has instructions on how to complete it and submit it properly.

I have mentioned before that certain States require "pre-approval" or registration of franchises before sales are allowed to residents of those States.  So, which States are "registration" States? Here’s the list of the fifteen States that require franchise registration:

1. California
2. Hawaii
3. Illinois
4. Indiana
5. Maryland
6. Michigan
7. Minnesota
8. New York
9. North Dakota
10. Oregon
11. Rhode Island
12. South Dakota
13. Washington
14. Wisconsin; and, of course
15. Virginia

If you’re considering buying a franchise in any of the States mentioned above, the first thing you should do is check with your State regulatory organization to be sure the franchisor is properly registered to sell franchises.

Following up on this post regarding different forms of tax treatment for LLC’s, I thought it would be helpful to briefly discuss who can elect S corp taxt treatment.  Because of all of the benefits of S corp tax treatment for Virginia LLC’s and Virginia corporations, the IRS has certain rules regarding who may take those benefits.  If you’re a Virginia LLC or Virginia corporation, you may elect S corp tax treatment:

1. If you file Form 2553 with the IRS within their time deadline (generally within 2 months and fifteen days of formation or the beginning of the year);
2. If you have no more than 100 shareholders (owners);
3. If all of those shareholders are individuals, estates, or certain exempt organizations;
4. If all of the shareholders are US residents (no nonresident alien shareholders allowed);
5. If the company has only one class of stock (meaning every shareholder/owner has equal distribution rights);
6. If the company is not engaged in one of the named ineligable types of businesses (banking, insurance, etc.);
7. If your corporation or LLC has or adopts certain calendar year tax years; and
8. all of the shareholders/members consent to the S corp tax election.

If your company satisfies all of those requirements, then you can enjoy the benefits of S corp taxt treatment.  The Form 2553 that you file to elect S corp tax treatment can be found at the IRS website here and the instructions for the Form 2553, which have more details on the requirements and process, can be found here (both forms open as a pdf).

How do you find out whether the name you want to use for your new Virginia LLC or Virginia corporation is available?  There are two ways:

1. You can check online by accessing the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s online database (called the Clerk’s Information System) located at http://www.scc.virginia.gov/division/clk/diracc.htm (look for the blue button in the middle of the page).  Check the "Name Search All Entities" box and then enter in potential names you would like to use; or
2. Call the Clerk’s Office at 804-371-9733 or toll free (if you’re in Virginia) at 866-722-2551 and ask the Clerk to check for you.

Look for the exact name or a confusing similarity with an existing Virginia LLC or Virginia corporation to avoid having your Articles returned to you.