Taxes/licenses required for Nevada company providing consulting services in California?

August 14, 2009 4:16 PM

Taxes/licenses required for Nevada company providing consulting services in California?

My friend has a small business incorporated as an LLC in Nevada. This business manufactures and sells scientific instrumentation.

Another company/organization is going to pay his business for him to travel to their site in California to demonstrate the instrumentation. They're not buying or leasing the instrumentation (yet), they're just paying for the use of it with the accompanying services of the operator (him).

What State of California taxes or business license requirements apply here? Should we also investigate county or city requirements for this sort of thing?

(I don't even know which California government office to call to ask!)

Thanks!

posted by Jacqueline to work & money (2 comments total)

BOE should be able to help.
posted by artdrectr at 4:36 PM on August 14

Update:

I did some more research on my own and found, amongst other things, this article:
http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009908120385

The $800 minimum franchise tax would suck given that this is just a one-time 2-day gig and his business does no other business in California.

The article says, "Companies also can petition the California Franchise Tax Board for a determination that the California activities are limited." But I'm experiencing GoogleFail for information on how one would go about making the petition, or what the criteria would be to make the determination that activities were "limited." Since the transaction hasn't taken place yet, it's still possible for my friend to set things up in such a way as to minimize taxes.

Any ideas? In my experience, it's generally useless to call government offices and ask questions unless you know the exact right terms to use because otherwise the person who answers the phone will have no idea whom to transfer your call to.
posted by Jacqueline at 5:38 PM on August 14