How can a business license itself in one State (DE, FL, HI) and operate in another State?
How do businesses license themselves in a State that they are not based out of. For example, many businesses license themselves in Delaware, Florida, Nevada, or Hawaii, but do all of their operations and headquarters in another State, such as California. How does this work? How can a business be licensed in one state and headquartered in another? What taxes would a business that does this pay to the State their office headquarters are in?
In the US a business incorporated in any one state may do business is all of the states.
Typically the business must maintain an office (often that of the incorporating attorney) in the state of incorporation and have a registered agent (the same attorney) who can be served with court papers in the state of incorporation.
In addition the corporation must have an agent in each state in which it has physical facilities (usually the manager of one of the facilities).
As far as taxes go it seems that for the majority of corporations that isn’t a problem since, through the use of creative bookkeeping, they don’t seem to pay much in the way of income taxes. The states and localities get theirs via local real estate taxes, franchise taxes, payroll taxes and so on.
Hope this helps
Jerry-the-bookkeeper