Bring Two Company's together

[Mike R]

Here is my question. I own my own company i build car engines and do the machine work but only do the cylinder heads the other company only dose the block part. I want to know if we can combine both under a new name but still run them as they are separate. Filing separate taxes

[MyITGuy]

I doubt it, but I would have to ask Who/What is the other company and what is the benefit in combining both under a new name? If you want to combine the companies, why do you want to file separate taxes?

[Business Attorney]

You should be able to what you want. For example, the two companies could form a joint venture (probably an LLC (http://llccenter.com)) and in the joint venture agreement (http://www.illinoisbusinessattorney.com/articles/joint-venture-agreement.html) you would spell out that the two business operations are to be run separately. For tax purposes, you would allocate the revenues and expenses to the two members.

Presumably there are at least some shared expenses, such as marketing and advertising, so you would have to come up with an equitable division. Would they be split 50/50, split in the percentages of gross revenues of the two businesses, split in the percentages of net income, or in some other manner.

If you do join your businesses together in some fashion, you should get a good business attorney to help you make sure that all the critical details are considered.

[lucas.bowser]

I would second Dave's answer. A J/V is a common way of having a joint operation between two partners, though I don't recall ever seeing just a name being shared. In your case, I would have expected to see some type of combined production process (i.e. final engine assembly) happening in the new company. What is the specific purpose of the new business entity, other than operating under a single name? And what benefit does operating under a single name have for you and the partner?