John, If I were you, I would do the following: 1. Read available business startup guides. Here are a couple: http://www.sbtdc.org/publications/startup.pdf (NC bus Startup Guide) http://www.sba.gov/starting/indexstartup.html (SBA Guide) 2. Talk with someone from Score. There are quite a few in NC. http://www.score.org/ 3. Talk with friends who have started a business, see if one of them has a lawyer or accountant friend who will talk with you for _free_. 4. If you don't have your answers by that time, then pay for a lawyer. If it is 4 people who want to work together, the most obvious choice would either be a loose collection of sole proprietors (as was mentioned earlier), a partnership, or an LLC. If an LLC, then you'll need a partnership agreement anyway. These agreements are very important. Also, NC has something called BLIO which is the business licensing information office. FREE. http://www.secretary.state.nc.us/blio/ -phil >From: "John D Bloise" <jbloise1 at nc.rr.com> > >Why would freelancing be a bad choice in the viewpoint of taxes? --- Net Growth Knowledge Management & Application Development 414.915.3833 http://www.netgrowth.net _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com