Welcome to your daily briefing on small business developments in Louisiana. Today we're covering 4 key stories including updates on louisiana small business headlines, background & context. Let's dive in.
1 story
A DBA, or 'doing business as,' is any registered name that a company or individual uses to operate that is not its legal name.
Louisiana small business professionals need to understand DBA requirements when operating under a name different from their legal business name.
Reach professionals in this market
3 stories
The federal safe harbor for estimated payments is the lesser of 90% of current-year tax or 100% (110% for higher incomes) of prior-year tax. New businesses meet safe harbor easily in year one when prior-year tax was zero. In year two, last-year-based safe harbor disappears and underpayment penalties surface.
The penalty is not large per dollar but compounds across quarters and surprises owners who thought their bookkeeper was handling it. Cash flow gets squeezed at exactly the growth point where it is tightest.
Buy-sell agreements among co-owners specify what happens at death, disability, or departure — but only matter if there is a funding source to actually execute the buyout. Common defects: insurance policies that lapsed, valuation methods that produce numbers no one can pay, and trigger events that include voluntary departure without a payment plan.
Without funding, the surviving owner faces a co-owner's heirs as the new business partner. Most buy-sell disputes that reach litigation are not about the agreement's terms but about the absence of a funding mechanism.
Most small-business credit cards — even those issued in the company name — carry a personal guarantee in the application terms. Default by the business becomes personal liability. This applies to most issuers including those marketed as "business credit builders.".
Owners assuming corporate-veil protection on business cards can be blindsided by personal collections actions years later. The card's branding does not match the legal exposure.
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