In order to get my COA for my firm to practice engineering in MD, I had to first register with the SoS (register as a foreign LLC practicing in MD). MD doesn't really know that I am billing customers there since the way they phrase the questions and per my CPA, I can answer $0 for everything on...
If your business is licensed outside of MD, you live and work outside of MD, all owners live outside MD, you have no offices in MD, and you have no employees in MD, you do not need to pay PTE tax.
My business (LLC file as Scorp) is registered in NC and also licensed as a foreign company in MD. I pay no taxes to MD and get the $300 SDAT annual report filing fee waived for qualifying for the "MarylandSaves" program. You just need a business retirement account (like 401k) to qualify.
As far...
I typically have residential owner clients pay upfront, with the exception of when a contractor/architect that I work with brings me a client for a project they are already designing/building (and that's usually because the owner requested to pay me directly). I always have a signed agreement...
zelgar - I specify in my contracts that their receivable is only a PDF with digital signature and seal, so I have no contractual obligation to provide CAD files in the first place. I do mainly retaining wall and precast concrete structure designs, and all our CAD files are 2D to begin with. If...
I know this doesn't help you now, but I have a policy for my company that anytime we send out CAD files, they get "dumbed down". I.e. we remove all title blocks, details, typical sections, etc. other than the main plan and/or elevation view of our design. We also explode all blocks and run a...
How much time/resources do you anticipate it will take to complete the project? I would start at 3X your pay rate with a 10-20% contingency.
If there is repetitive work, there are still costs with putting these into project/section specific plans, review comments, and insurance costs for the...
This is my opinion. The engineer of record is ultimately responsible for the final design, and every body that contributes to the final design must be under the EOR's responsible charge. It doesn't matter if the person contributing to the design is a fellow engineer licensed in the same state...
I was 31 when I went out on my own, after just welcoming a kid (I now have 2). I love it and would never look back.
As far as supporting your family, I calculated I only needed to make $100/day 5 days a week to support our family if my wife lost her job (we also had investment income coming...
bimr - The low-point of the wall is at the opposite corner from the street. The wall is U-shaped at the back of the property at the low-point with the street at the front being the high point.
Thanks EireChrch, it is a re-occurring theme recently. I will likely be giving this one a call later today, but I'm hoping to develop a boiler plate response I can give for this type of issue going forward.
I am designing a small retaining wall 5-ft off the property line with weep holes. The town permitting department rejected the design because there are "downspouts" (to use the town's language) that will pour water onto the neighbor's property.
The wall is flattening out the site, but the...
"Sketches" should have been in quotation marks, but an out from Gslope or ReSSA could be interpreted as a sketch.
On smaller projects, I typically see the person onsite as a third party inspector, not the geotechnical engineer or a representative from their firm. In practice, I rarely see the...
I don't have experience with pole barns, but I do a lot of retaining walls. We typically design the structural aspects of the wall, while the geotechnical engineer does the global stability and portions of external stability. We clearly state the delineation of responsibility in our drawings...
I would want to run that in a global stability software with ground water at an estimates flood elevation with drawdown, even if the geotech doesn't think it necessary. Having more embedment or an undercut for that case may be necessary.
A good geotechnical engineer with knowledge of local soils could look at the topography of the site and determine whether global stability is necessary.
I was involved recently with a project where a geotechnical engineer did something similar (they did visit the site and perform a couple...
Hi Robert,
I can confirm this is the legitimate website for renewals, and I renewed my firm license using this site a couple months ago and received my new firm certificate. I received the email to renew directly from the GA SoS, using an email address I only use with the GA SoS.
I also...
My business has grown to 4 people, and I am looking for a solution to track my team's time to specific projects so I can track profitability by project. We do not have billable hours, no do we tie hours worked to payroll, so this will just be an internal tracking tool.
I am looking for a tool...
Generally there is a tolerance for the wall batter, say 2-degrees from the design batter (confirm with the wall design drawings). The batter should be checked. You can monitor the face for rotation and sliding.
From your picture, I would be concerned about the foundation being undermined and...
This is what I have been told too. If you own the business, are the only employee/worker, and are sued, the judge will rule that the corporation only exists to provide you, the individual, asset protection and the judge will not view you as substantially different from your corporation. The...
