Have you ever made anything that’s lasted twenty-five years? I wouldn’t have thought so, but LinkedIn today reminded me that I’ve been running Innoveghtive Inc. for that long!

It’s true: on May 1, 1999, I registered Ontario Corporation 1354702. It was so I could publish Macinsite Magazine. First issue was published in July of 1999. It was also the last issue (Long story: you can learn more about that in my SwiftTO talk from last year).

But a corporation isn’t a magazine: it’s a structure that I deployed to shield me for my whole career! While I did go on to work “jobby jobs”, I used the company to do my fledgling freelance work. For years it was known as “Macinsite Inc”. But some years later, in 2006, when I went into contracting full-time, I decided a name change was in order. Over an Italian dinner in Ajax, Ontario, my wife came up with the name: Innoveghtive Inc.

At the turn of the 21st century, incorporating was burdensome, expensive and annoying. These days it’s a lot easier in Ontario; instead of paying $1500 and filing paperwork with separate government entities, you can pay as little as $60 and have it done in minutes! (Worth noting, corporations are registered in different jurisdictions, and yours is almost certainly different, and has different rules and costs, etc etc etc).

Why would anyone do this, though?

In my conception of the world, there’s two paths you can follow: you can work for someone else, or you can work for yourself. If you do the second, you should probably have a corporation.

Corporations are separate legal entities that operate in a different tax bracket. Again, adding the proviso that rules are different in other jurisdictions, in general, the corporation’s purpose is to limit your legal and financial liability — the corporation is the entity that might be sued or targeted for its assets should things go pear-shaped. Your own exposure is shielded.

Corporations can also efficiently write off expenses against the revenues brought in. If a corporation booked $100,000 in revenue, but spent $60,000 in legitimate expenses (not least of which might be salaries, but could also be computer equipment, office supplies, car use, meals, etc), then the $40,000 of profit is what gets taxed. And in many jurisdictions, the tax rate is lower for corporations than individuals.

These advantages come at a cost, though: it’s more complicated to run a corporation, because it has to file annual reports and pay taxes separately. I have an accountant whom I’ve been working with for quite a while now, and I am delighted to be giving her about $4,000 every year to take this all off my hands.

Nowadays, every time I bill a client for my work, the invoice comes from Innoveghtive Inc. When I’m on the App Store with a new app, the company is Innoveghtive Inc. When I die, Innoveghtive Inc will receive a fat life insurance payout (which will go right to my wife or daughter). Yeah, those insurance premiums are also a delightful pre-tax expense for the corporation.

Long live Innoveghtive Inc!