Intuit Relaunches Incorporation Site, Referral Program

In an annual ritual, many small businesses rush out after tax season to take their accountant's advice on the tax benefits of incorporation, and business software and services company Intuit has relaunched its online incorporation and document-filing services site to coincide with the rush.

MyCorporation streamlines the process of incorporating a business, gathering the necessary corporate information online, and then preparing all the applicable forms and filing them with the appropriate jurisdictions. The process can take as little as five days, and starts at $149 for a basic incorporation.

MyCorporation also offers resources and information to help would-be corporations decide which entity type to choose -- though it makes no official recommendations. "We're very careful not to practice law," said director of legal affairs Deborah Sweeney. The company leaves those kinds of suggestions to professionals like accountants and lawyers.

In fact, MyCorporation has a referral program (http://www.mycorporation.com/affiliates.html?lyr=agreement) for professionals in which they can earn up to 15 percent of the fees paid by clients. The company has over 5,000 accountants in its referral program database, according to Sweeney, and they are the site's No. 1 source of referrals, with some making as many as 20 referrals a week.

The site supports all kinds of entity types, and can handle annual reports, re-registrations, and even corporate withdrawals and dissolutions. It also offers trademark registration and registered agent services, copyright filings and "doing-business-as" filings.

Founded in 1998, MyCorporation was acquired by Intuit in 2005.