About Nolo

Nolo's mission is to make the legal system work for everyone -- not just lawyers. What we do: To help people handle their own everyday legal matters -- or learn enough about them to make working with a lawyer a more satisfying experience -- we publish reliable, plain-English books, software, forms and this website. Some of our products have been in print almost 30 years, which is how long Nolo has been in business. Everything we publish is regularly revised, updated and improved by our staff of lawyer-editors, to make sure that it's the best it can be. We pay attention not only to changes in the law, but to feedback from customers, lawyers, judges and court staffers. The Internet is tailor-made for delivering self-help legal information. Online, we can make useful, up-to-date legal information and products available instantly, 24 hours a day. Our site provides articles on almost any legal topic, and links to other helpful websites. People who need more help can buy a book or software program, download a short "eGuide" or electronic FormKit or fill out a single legal form online. (And unlike any lawyer we know, we provide a money-back guarantee.) We also use our website to promote our own proposals for reforming America's legal system, and to poke a little fun at courts and lawyers. Maybe it's because we know the legal system so well -- after all, almost all of our editors and authors are lawyers themselves -- that we enjoy slipping in a lawyer joke here and there. Why we do it: Everybody knows that lawyers charge too much and explain too little about what they're doing. What many people don't know (although they may suspect it) is that in many instances, lawyers are simply unnecessary. We believe the legal system is in serious need of repairs to make it simpler, fairer and more accessible to ordinary people, and we're working toward those ends. But as long as the system is more attuned to the lawyers than the public, Nolo will keep guiding people through it.

Nolo

When Your Business Partner Is Your Life Partner

If you are going into business for yourself and your spouse will help out, you don’t need to hire your husband or wife as an employee or independent contractor, nor do you need to form a LLC or corporation. If you follow certain guidelines, you can continue to operate as a sole proprietorship (a one-owner [...]

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LLC Business Basics

A limited liability company (LLC) combines attributes from both corporations and partnerships (or for one-person LLCs, sole proprietorships): the corporation’s protection from personal liability for business debts and the simpler tax structure of partnerships. And while setting up an LLC is more difficult than creating a partnership or sole proprietorship, running one is significantly easier [...]

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Corporation Basics

Most people have heard that forming a corporation provides “limited liability” — that is, it limits your personal liability for business debts. What you may not know is that there’s more to creating and running a corporation than filing a few papers. You’ll need to keep excellent records to handle the more complicated corporate tax [...]

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Partnership Basics

By definition, a partnership is a business with more than one owner that has not filed papers with the state to become a corporation or LLC (limited liability company). There are two basic types of partnerships — general partnerships and limited partnerships. This article discusses only general partnerships — those in which every partner has [...]

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If You Publish It, Will They Come?

If you’ve decided to jump into online publishing — putting out an online newsletter, magazine or other content that will interest your business’s customers — you may think that designing your website is your biggest challenge. But that’s the easy part. Much trickier is gathering an audience that will sustain the publication. Here are some [...]

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Sole Proprietorship Basics

A sole proprietorship is a business that is owned by one person (and sometimes his or her spouse) and that isn’t registered with the state as a corporation or a limited liability company (LLC). Sole proprietorships are so easy to set up and maintain that you may already own one without knowing it. For instance, [...]

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Simple and Enforceable Contracts

For most contracts, legalese is not essential nor helpful; contractual agreements are best expressed in simple, everyday English. Although lots of contracts are filled with mind-bending legal gibberish, there’s no reason why this has to be true. For most contracts, legalese is not essential or even helpful. On the contrary, the agreements you’ll want to [...]

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Tax on Internet Sales

Here’s the skinny on Internet sales tax: who pays it, who doesn’t and why it makes a difference to state governments and brick-and-mortar retailers. It’s hardly a secret that shoppers hate paying sales tax and love a tax-free bargain. Case in point, the tax-free shops in airports that are so successful at separating Bahamas-bound travelers [...]

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Earning Income as a Nonprofit Corporation

Nonprofit corporations, by definition, exist not to make money but to fulfill one of the purposes recognized by federal law: charitable, educational, scientific or literary. Under state and federal tax laws, however, as long as a nonprofit corporation is organized and operated for a recognized nonprofit purpose and has secured the proper tax exemptions, it [...]

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S Corporation Business Facts and Options

Many entrepreneurs have two goals when choosing a structure for their business: protecting their personal assets from business claims and having business profits taxed on their individual tax returns. Not long ago, an S corporation was the only choice for these business owners. In the last few years, however, the popularity of S corporations has [...]

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