My partner and I plan to set up our practice as an LLP, but are concerned that we may be missing "something". We are a partnership more for moral support than actual sharing of work. Her strengths are my weaknesses and vis versa. Not that either of us ever see it happening, but the future is always uncertain, so we also see this as an easier way to split the business if it should ever need to be done. We wont really be sharing clients due to the fact that we both do different types of work, but we will be there for the other to use if the need arises, if she needs help with a presentation or I need help with legal forms or if one or the other is swamped. So, I guess my question / our concern is if we are separate but one; do we divide things (expenses / income) based on the amount of input each of us had or can we still split "things" 50/50 when we actually have "things" to split? I'm questioning this more from a legal side not personal side. We don't want to share the taxes / income / expenses only to find out we should not have been doing it that way. Ignorance is not bliss or a sound defense, if ya know what I mean.

Thanks

I'm sure one of our fabulously legal-minded VAs will post a specific reply here for you but I'm just going to pitch in that I don't see a reason for starting an LLP if all you're going to be doing with this other VA is passing along the once-in-a-while subcontract. If you don't want to share taxes/income/expenses then what possible advantage would there be to setting up an LLP?

I'd say, each of you should go LLC and sub to eachother when need be - end of story. And I'd bet that the mutual support/friendship you share will stay all the more intact for NOT being tied into a business partnership

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