Starting a Business Do I need A DBA

[Vincent_R]

Jurisdiction

Texas

I have been running my business as a solar proprietor for the past year. I have an EIN and business license under this name. I decided to create an LLC for 2022. The LLC is the same as the business name other than the addition of "LLC." Do I need to create a DBA to use the original business name?. I guess a secondary question is to I need to use the LLC when promoting the business moving forward? Thank you in advance for the help.

 

[Tax Counsel]

I have been running my business as a solar proprietor for the past year. I have an EIN and business license under this name. I decided to create an LLC for 2022. The LLC is the same as the business name other than the addition of "LLC." Do I need to create a DBA to use the original business name?. I guess a secondary question is to I need to use the LLC when promoting the business moving forward? Thank you in advance for the help.

Using the same name for both the sole proprietorship and the LLC is not a good idea if you plan to keep both going at the same time. That will create confusion among consumers as to which company does what. Will the LLC do the same things you are doing now as a sole proprietorship? If the answer is yes, then convert the sole proprietorship to a LLC and from then on only do the work through the LLC.

 

[flyingron]

Asb far as Texas goes, you can't have distinguishable names that differ only by the "LLC" being there or not. If you were operating under that fictitious name with your sole proprietorship, you should have filed for a DBA for that name. If you had, you probably wouldn't have been able to register the LLC with that name, so it appears you didn't.

You don't need a fictitious name if the name you're doing business under is not distinguished from the actual entity.

 

[Vincent_R]

Excellent. Thank you so much!

 

[zddoodah]

I have been running my business as a solar proprietor for the past year.

Did you mean "sole proprietor," or did you mean that you provide some sort of product(s)/service(s) in connection with solar power?

Do I need to create a DBA to use the original business name?

Since no one here is privy to the names being used, it's impossible to answer this question intelligently. That said, if your LLC is "Vincent R Solar Services, LLC," you don't need any sort of fictitious business name filing to do business as "Vincent R Solar Services."

I guess a secondary question is to I need to use the LLC when promoting the business moving forward?

I don't know what you mean by "us[ing] the LLC [to] promot[e] the business." That said, if your business is now an LLC, why wouldn't you do this?