North Carolina Business Legal Questions

It is impossible to tell from the facts you have posted what, if any, contacts the business has with North Carolina. In order to respond, it would be necessary to know whether the business makes retail sales to N.C. residents, from where, and whether the business has offices and assets in N.C.... Read Answer

You can form an LLC and elect to have it taxed as a corporation, in which case it will be a separate entity for tax purposes. However, this will vastly multiply your tax filing burden and will not provide you with the principal benefit of a single-member LLC, which is the ability to "ignore" it for tax purposes and simply report the income on your own Schedule C. If you go the "corporation" route, you will have to file corporation state and federal tax returns and will possibly have to engage an accountant to do so.... Read Answer

It is likely that your in-laws have received benefits from a Medicaid program because they lack sufficient liquid assets and income to pay for their care. Under these circumstances, the life estate in their property, which they retained, is subject to a Medicaid lien, which means that Medicaid has the right to be repaid from the sale of the property for what it has laid out for their care. It is unclear whether the sons have received their remainder interest free and clear of the Medicaid lien under the circumstances you posit.... Read Answer

The general legal rule is that, if you receive money by mistake, you must repay it. The same holds true of taxes. It is difficult for you to argue that you should not have to repay the money, since, had your tax return been accurately prepared, you would never have received the money in the first place. In other words, by repaying the money, you are simply restored to the position you would have occupied had the return been correct. You may have a claim against H & R Block with respect to the interest, My guess is that the interest alone is not a large number. But you should raise it with them.... Read Answer

The estimated fair value of donated items constitute contributions, and are generally in the nature of "public" support that substantiates your status as a public charity. The donations you make are program expenses. Since the "donations" you receive are not in exchange for tangible goods or services, but rather voluntary, sales tax will generally not be due on items you give away.... Read Answer

These are precisely the perils of trying to do things yourself. If you have no assets under management, you cannot register with the SEC as an investment advisor. There is no general "filing" with the SEC with respect to new businesses that do not make a public offering of securities. Sounds as if you need help -- why don't you consider engaging the services of an attorney?... Read Answer

As a general matter, an employee of a legal entity (such as an officer of a corporation) and the entity itself are indistinguishable for defamation purposes. In other words, if an employee makes false statements about you to his employer, the statements will fail to qualify as defamatory because there is no third party to whom the statements are deemed to have been communicated -- the wrongdoer and the recipient of the statement are the same. That does not mean that you have no claim against the employee, if that employee is willfully communicating statements about you to his government employer that he knows to be false -- but your remedy may be under some other principle than the laws of defamation. You should consult an attorney to see whether such claims are permitted in your state.... Read Answer