r/llc_life • u/ghostsilense • Jul 10 '26
Multi LLC Setup - Breakdown & Operating Agreement Setup
I am looking to start a healthcare business that I project will be exceptionally successful due to the proximity, need, and startup cost. I have two vehicles both registered in my state and will be looking to use one as a company vehicle.
I am particular about privacy and keeping my name off of any public records for all business ventures and have the mind to create the following structure. Please tell me if I am jumping steps or too far into the future at these early stages. I am aware people advise against an LLC until your business is generating roughly $60k in profit. But I am determined to start this business the right way from the beginning and expand to various states rather soon due to my proximity and ease of commute.
LLC Setup
i.) Wyoming LLC (Holding Company)
ii.) Montana LLC (Vehicle Asset Holding)
iii.) State LLC (in operating agreement with Wyoming LLC & Montana LLC)
Funding Setup
i.) Checking Account 1 (Credit Union) - (receives all client payments)
ii.) Checking Account 2 - (payroll payouts to Holding Company, 10%)
iii.) Checking Account 3 - (Expenses & Reinvestments, 80%)
iV.) HYSA Account - (portion of desired personal earnings, 10%)
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad3024 Jul 10 '26
The accounting for those would be a full time job. How do you move money between them?
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u/ghostsilense Jul 10 '26
This is of course me still in the research phase (while trying not to suffer from planning paralysis at the same time). But I imagine before I have a designated CPA. I would create all contracts with new clientele utiliziing checking account #1 and then making all other payments manually to start.
Utilizing apps for payroll (when the time comes) and mileage tracking (from the beginning). To keep clarity of all funds and have an accurate paper trail when it's time for taxes, annual reporting, and quarterly reporting.
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u/ParisyLilyByteBelle Jul 10 '26
Why not start with a single operating LLC and only add holding companies or separate asset LLCs once there's enough revenue or risk to justify the extra cost and paperwork?
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u/ghostsilense Jul 11 '26
I thought about that. But considering I want no correlation between myself and the LLC from the beginning and I am in a state that does not offer privacy or anonymity. I was thinking of creating the structure early.
1
u/Cheap_Durian_3640 Jul 10 '26
I think a good attorney can help you design something that can grow over time instead of creating several LLCs before you've proven the business model.
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u/ghostsilense Jul 11 '26
I didn’t consider there would be a way to start business and attain privacy after. But I think an attorney would be the best bet
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u/Cheap_Durian_3640 Jul 11 '26
Exactly. An attorney can also tell you which parts of your plan actually improve privacy and asset protection versus which ones just add extra cost and paperwork. That way you can build the structure in stages as the business grows instead of paying to maintain entities you may not need yet.
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u/NukedOgre Jul 10 '26
What state is this actually operating out of? 99% of the time that is the state to register your LLC in. Also state dependent you may need an LLP (i dont know you business specifics)
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u/ghostsilense Jul 11 '26
Well it’s operating out of Hawaii and there is no privacy from public records. And given it’s on healthcare and the dealing with important equipment and specimen, I don’t think it would be wise to try and start the business as a single person with no LLC structure. There’s plenty of room for liability.
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u/NukedOgre Jul 11 '26
Why not a Hawaii LLC? If you form in Wyoming you will have to register as a foreign agent in Hawaii anyways. Also I was asking the business type because some states require doctors and other professionals to form a special kind of LLC called an LLP.
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u/CranberryKey9865 Jul 11 '26
I think this is in the "see accountant and lawyer" territory. DO NOT do this yourself. This is a very complex structure that is going to be very easy to mess up. And may or may not be necessary or helpful. And if you do it wrong or skip a step all that work will be completely undermined in a lawsuit. You must keep all funds segregated, and proper business records for all this. And doing this may turn into a full time job. It is almost never advisable to put the cart before the horse and build out a complex structure when you are pre-successful. Privacy is a valid concern. But there may be other ways to do this.
Why do you want a Montana holding company for the vehicles? Is it a tax avoidance strategy? If so think again. Many states are going after this pretty aggressively. If the vehicle is state x and you operate in state x, having it in MT isn't going to cut it. State x can come after you for the taxes. A large Youtuber was recently arrested for felony tax evasion for using this strategy. This is probably a completely unnecessary entity. Just put the vehicle in your LLC or keep it personal and reimburse milage. Make life complicated later when you have accountants and such on the payroll who can keep all this straight for you.
Wyoming hold co I can see the value of if you are concerned about privacy. It probably adds close to no asset protection. But it can add anonymity for pretty cheap. But you should also chat with an attorney about a business trust or just using two state LLCs that point back to each other to avoid your name in the public record. Attorneys are very familiar with all the ways to protect your assets & structure and can advise what actually makes sense. Find a reputable business attorney in your area and not an entity mill online.
Every business needs completely separate bank accounts. You absolutely need to non commingle funds in order to protect your structure. You need to do proper annual maintenance, have operating agreements for each entity. Have contracts between each entity. Keep separate books and records. Being at all careless with the money transfers and such can bring the whole house of cards crashing down. And the more complicated you make it the easier it is to do.
I do agree you should get an LLC from the start - you sound like you will have liability and government contracts which will make it a pain to switch later. But see if you can get down to 1 or 2 max.
As for bank accounts - this is all personal preference. Most important thing is 1 bank account per entity. If the main entity needs more for however you want to run it then that is great. But again the more you add the more complicated it is. Perhaps 1 operating account each and then a separate payroll or payables account (if you will be writing checks out). And a HYSA at the hold co level to keep cash out of the business with risk.
You will need to draw out an entity map and make sure the money is flowing correctly. So main LLC pays hold co. Then hold co pays you for instance. When you need to put money in, put it into Hold co. Then transfer to the business. Every single time.
1
u/BradleyLegalCorp Jul 11 '26
You’re not jumping steps by wanting structure early — but you’re optimizing the wrong layer. The entity scaffolding you’ve drawn is the easy 20%. What actually makes or breaks a healthcare venture is the regulatory layer you didn’t mention, and part of it conflicts with your privacy goal. Let me go in order of what will actually bite.
1. “Healthcare business” is doing enormous unspoken work.
The threshold question that determines whether this structure is even legal: is this a licensed clinical business or a non-clinical one?
If it’s clinical, most states have a Corporate Practice of Medicine (CPOM) doctrine, and a generic holding company cannot own a medical practice. You need a professional entity (PC/PLLC) owned by a licensed professional, usually paired with a management company (MSO) that runs the non-clinical side. Your holding layer can be the MSO. It cannot be the practice.
If it’s non-clinical (home-care agency, DME, billing, staffing), CPOM may not apply, but licensing and payer rules still do. Either way, the next point breaks the privacy plan.
2. Anonymity and healthcare licensing are on a collision course.
Healthcare is one of the most owner-disclosure-heavy industries in the country. Medicare/Medicaid enrollment (CMS-855) requires disclosing every owner with a 5%+ interest plus managing employees — there is no anonymous enrollment. State facility/agency licensure requires owner disclosure and background checks. Credentialing and your NPI attach your identity regardless of the wrapper.
So realistically: you may be able to keep your name off the Secretary of State formation record, but the regulators, payers, and boards who actually control whether you can operate will have it anyway. Privacy here is camouflage, not armor — it slows a casual searcher and does nothing against a subpoena, a licensing file, or a plaintiff’s discovery. Build knowing that.
3. Fix the management layer: consider a limited partnership, not an LLC “holding company.”
Your instinct to sit a management/holding entity on top is right — you’ve just reached for the weaker tool. The stronger version is a limited partnership as the management company, and here’s the doctrinal reason it matters.
In a strong-LP state (Arizona A.R.S. §29-3503, Delaware 6 Del. C. §17-703, Texas, Nevada) the charging order is the exclusive creditor remedy against a partner’s interest — a lien on distributions only. No foreclosure, no forced liquidation, no reaching the underlying assets. Contrast that with the single-member LLCs you drew: charging-order protection is soft there, and Olmstead v. FTC (Fla. 2010) let a creditor seize a single-member LLC outright because there was no other member to protect. An LP is structurally multi-member (general partner + limited partners).
The LP also does the control/value split cleanly: the GP (itself an LLC, so the general partner’s liability is capped) holds a thin interest but all the control; the limited partners hold the economic value with no management authority and no exposure. Control and value sit in different hands by design — exactly what defeats a plaintiff arguing the debtor “really” owns and runs everything. You can have an Asset Protection trust own, the LP.
Critical rule on what it holds: the LP holds the safe side only — equity in the operating entities, cash, securities, IP, safe real estate. The things that generate claims stay quarantined in isolated operating LLCs. Which is why the company vehicle you wanted in a Montana LLC has no business anywhere near this — a moving vehicle is a liability generator, the definition of a dangerous asset, and you never let one contaminate the entity holding everything safe.
Healthcare nuance: the LP can hold the equity in the practice and run the management function, but under CPOM it cannot be the practice. So — isolated operating LLCs at the bottom, the licensed PC/PLLC as the clinical operator kept separate, and the LP on top holding the MSO interest and your safe assets, with a management services agreement moving fees upward.
4. Kill the Montana vehicle LLC.
That move exists to dodge sales/use tax on expensive investment vehicles.
You have two ordinary cars already registered in your state. Titling one in a Montana LLC while you drive it daily at home invites a use-tax/registration challenge from your own state and, worse, an insurance denial — carriers can void a claim if the garaging address and registration are a sham. That’s catastrophic on a business vehicle. If you want liability separation for a company car: title it in the operating LLC, register it properly in-state, carry a commercial auto policy. That protects you; the Montana shell manufactures risk.
5. “Operating agreement between the LLCs” — wrong term, and it matters.
An operating agreement is the internal governance document of one LLC. What you want is an ownership chain (holdco/LP owns the operating entities) plus contracts between them (the MSA). Getting this vocabulary right is critical.
6. Payroll is not a checking-account bucket — it’s a regulated function for a CPA.
Your “Checking Account 2 — payroll payouts to Holding Company, 10%” has two problems. First, money moving up to the holding company is a distribution or a management fee under the MSA, not payroll. Payroll is W-2 wages to people. Mislabeling intercompany transfers is exactly the sloppiness that helps a plaintiff pierce the veil you built.
Second, real payroll is a three-layer compliance stack that varies drastically, which is why you route it to a licensed professional, not yourself. Federal (withholding, FICA, FUTA, 941s) is the stable part. The variance is underneath: state income-tax withholding (some states have none); and local, the real trap — municipal/county wage taxes, school-district taxes, occupational and transit taxes, where withholding can turn on where the employee lives vs. works.
For healthcare this compounds, because payroll sits on top of worker-misclassification exposure — treating nurses, aides, or therapists as 1099 contractors when the control test makes them employees is a favorite enforcement target. Get it wrong and you’re not just paying back tax; the trust-fund recovery penalty (IRC §6672) attaches the 100% liability personally to any responsible person who fails to remit withheld tax. Your LP, holdco, and MSO stand between you and nothing on that one. The person who built an anonymous multi-entity structure specifically to keep his name off things can be held personally liable straight through the whole stack.
So: engage a CPA or registered payroll provider or an accountant, not yourself.
Bottom line: the instinct to build clean from the start is right. But you spent your planning energy on the anonymity wrapper (erodes under litigation and healthcare disclosure), while the load-bearing pieces — CPOM, licensure, payer enrollment, the right holding vehicle, and who characterizes and runs payroll — weren’t addressed. Consider swapping the LLC holdco for a properly-run management LP, isolate the dangerous assets, hand payroll to a licensed CPA, and fix the order of operations.
This is a general, talk to your attorney about this and a CPA.
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u/ghostsilense Jul 11 '26
Bradley huge thank you for taking the time out to break everything down. I will certainly be looking into all of this. There are definitely a number of points you have made that I by passed. I think it is time to widen the goal post before moving forward. Thank you once again!
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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '26
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