Howdy folks. I worked a wee bit on this and am happy to answer questions if you have them.
Could you for example create an article that demonstrates these following cases:
1. Exactly 0 activity. Cost to incorporate + yearly cost.
2. Some International sales (credit cards). Say 20k in sales
3. US sales. Say 20k in sales.
4. Example of deduction and how much it saves in taxes.
These example can be very helpful. For example, if I'm expecting $20k in US sales, and have $15k expenses; I know that my taxes + accounting expenses will be between X and Y. I know that every situation is different but it kinda brings the feet back to the earth. It is not going to cost just to registration and the yearly franchising fee.
Getting started with Atlas is $500 flat, in all cases. The ballpark numbersfor yearly running costs, inclusive of the Delaware franchise tax, registered agent fee, the bank fee, and a tax return through the appropriate Atlas partner but not inclusive of corporate income tax or your personal tax situation:
No activity: ~$1,000 $20k of sales, all US activity: ~$2,000 $20k of sales, cross-border activity: still rounds to ~$2,000 but the tax return preparation will cost ~$200 more
2. I know the world doesn't revolve around CA but a sure lot of tech happens here. Any chance you'll add CA franchise taxes too?
You can probably imagine that closing a company with actual assets / liabilities / pending legal claims / etc can get much, much more complicated. That sort of thing would be solidly "you need to ask a lawyer" level.
We didn't automate the process of making that election because we felt it was not a fit for most Atlas users. A Delaware C corporation can still elect S corp status; that's a "talk to your accountant" question.
The primary reason people seem to want S Corps is to save social security taxes by putting their salary in one small bucket and their distributions in one larger bucket. Should we spend time enabling that, when our primary goal is accelerating the number and success of viable businesses creating wealth in the world? That does not sound like it is how we should spend a month of our lives.
I though it was the point here, to reduce such needs? Anything Atlas does can be solved by an accountant and a lawyer.
As to reasons, S-Corp allows deducting losses from personal income. This saves a good chunk of money in the early stages. In fact there few reasons to avoid S-corp until you start picking up serious investments.
That said: the general scale of our ambitions is "incorporate a majority of all Internet companies, worldwide" and "materially impact global macroeconomic indicators." Anything needed to accomplish those things is in (eventual) scope for us.