Can I easily/affordably incorporate in another state without claiming residence there?

1) Yes, and answered quite nicely by Tom Ritter. Another company that does registered agent services is "Thecompany corporation" also online. http://www.incorporate.com/ I've used them since forming Apriority LLC as a Deleware corp. I am located in NY.

2) No more complex, the services take the hassle out of it if you are willing to pay (about 300 for 3 years of service at TCC)

3) Yes, 2500 to form an LLC is nuts. I can vouch only for the company corporation as I used their services but a popular legal service that covers incorporation is "legalzoom.com". You should be able to find many others.

Much success,

David Saintloth

I like Tom's answer, but there are certainly states where you can just do it.

Delaware is the usual example because they have really nice rules and costs for incorporating, so many businesses do that from all over the US.

Not sure outside the US.

Yes, you can. I currently have 3 companies, 2 of which are incorporated in Wyoming, a state I've never even set foot in. Many states require you to have some sort of company representative there though, which most of the time you can pay the people you incorporate with or the PO Box rep to be. It's normally a yearly cost that's pretty small, but honestly, why do that when there are so many other better reasons to incorporate in other states.

To answer your questions:

1.) Is it possible to own a business in another state without being a resident there?

Yes, it's possible. Check on each state's laws about what the requirements are though. They differ widely, as does their tax regulations and incorporation regulations.

2.) Would this be anymore complex than setting up an llc in m current state?

Generally, no. If you've done one LLC, doing another for another state would be trivial. The thing which would probably take up more cost and time is your bookkeeping when moving money from one company to another.

3.) Does anyone have any good references for this sort of thing? I haven't been able to find a whole lot online outside of the usual spam sites and sites trying to charge me $2500 for an llc.

If you're in San Diego, I have a personal reference for you (feel free to contact me direct). Otherwise, I'm sorry, I don't have much in the way of urls - just personal experience.

I would suggest that you check with a lawyer about the definition of "nexus" and the requirements for a foreign corporation in your state. If a substantial amount of the work for a corporation (or other business entity) is done in State A, whether the corporation is a State B corporation or not, the laws of State A will require you to register as a foreign corporation, pay a corporate fee, pay State A corporate taxes on the portion of total revenues you generate in State A, etc., etc. You must imagine yourself before a judge in State A someday, trying to claim with a straight face that you are not doing business in State A, that you are a State B corporation. This is the "If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck" test that State A will apply to your business, plus all the penalties and interest for avoiding state taxes. You can easily read about these requirements for foreign corporations on the web site for your secretary of state, or whatever state office regulates and administers corporations. Corporations form in Delaware because of the favorable corporate statutes and the well established case law, not because they are dodging state taxes. I suppose if you were to essentially completely outsource your online marketing efforts so the people who work for you are all in other states, you might be able to arrange to only collect net profits without significant management involvement, but I suspect that would be very difficult to achieve in practice. You also might be able to break the nexus between your internet marketing affiliated companies and your company by forming two separate companies, one foreign company that then turns around and contracts with the local company, thus keeping the first company free of the local state nexus for the companies you are an affiliate for. But again, if the sole purpose of this two company arrangement is to avoid state taxes, it will fail the "walks like a duck" test with the local state.