How would a team of runner make a private PMC?

Would off shore banking help?

Would basing the corp in third world nation be a good or a bad idea?

Would hiring out outside canon-fo...I mean help be a good idea?

Just a thought but becoming a CORP defeats the point of running,
the only way I could think of doing it if you wanted would be to get on some big runs, start farming out the milk runs (at profit) to smaller runners. This would create an income, you could then expand and so forth.

Still selling out though.

torz x

You be shifting from traditional SR into SimSR or something. PLenty of gamers have done that though, managing groups, castles, corps, etc. There are no rules for it, so you would have to set-up your own objectives and criteria for the types of things you would be doing. Not my bag, but I suppose to some it is.

Never mind I'm a moron.

Wander down to your local registry and go "I would like to incorperate a company, please."

Well, it depends. If it's a corp or limited liability company or partnership, then you need to register with your state (assuming this is the UCAS) somewhere. That's as easy as filling in the blanks. They sell kits at bookstores for almost nothing.

Then you'd need to get certain permits depending on what exactly you plan to do.

Then you need an accountant to deal with the IRS (again, assuming UCAS). A lawyer wouldn't hurt, either.

Resgistering offshore eases tax liability, and frees you up to work places that you couldn't if you worked in the UCAS (like probably some of the NAN), but if you plan on doing anything legitimate for that government, you'll have to register there too, and comply with their laws.

Having employees is generally a good idea. Perhaps become an affiliate of some other PMC. If you're willing to cede mangerial control, put up the capital and become a subsidy of MET2000 or something, and let them worry about the paperwork. If you're lucky, you can keep them at bay by retaining 51% of the company (assuming you incorporate).

If it's going to be a legitimate company, it'll help if one or more of the people running it have a SIN. If it's something small, like a freelance security company, then you can probably get away with having 'shady' employees. What exactly is the corp supposed to do?

I know lots of self employed people who have incorperated themselves. Takes an ID and about 50 bucks. What good would it do a shadowrunner?

A front for money laundering. A shell company. Goods/services that they want to officialy provide to a clientele. Etc, etc, et al.

Setting up a compony is trivial (assuming you have a sin).

Making it do something is more complicated.

What business do they want to get into?

Once you manage to become “a respected business” you can probably start printing SINs for anybody you want to employ. The UCAS has a facility to upgrade somebody from probationary citizen (SINles) to full citizen. With a legitimate job and a willingness to go threw the paperwork (things the business can help with) obtaining a legal sin would be easy (if time consuming).

Thus a small compony with a policy of helming the unfortunate would be a great front for a dealer in fake IDs

Edward

As soon as they're providing legal services, they're not shadowrunners anymore, they're mercs or something. If that's what they want to do, great, but it changes a lot of the assumptions that go along with running. Like how and where you obtain gear. And being allowed to do those previously illegal things only after you have obtained the legal permission to do so. "Umm... Mr. corp man, I represent Killers inc, and we've been hired to shoot up some gangers that have taken refuge on property that technically belong to you, so..."

If you want your corp to hide illegal activities, then yes, set it up in a third world country where the legal guys are easier to bribe. Hire a good lawyer and a really good accountant and file all your expenses under 'miscellaneous'.

If one of my players wanted to do this, I'd have chat with him about maybe just starting a new campaign. If he said he wanted his character to go from street to legit, I'd suggest that being his goal in the campaign and he could retire afterwards. If he still wanted to keep this character going, I'd give him a big-time day job flaw, have him roll a business admin. or negotiation skill or something each session and create a table that would indicate the success or failure of the company, and just use the company itself as a plot device. If he wanted just to run the company, I'd suggest he could just go do that in real life.

Looking back I wonder if this guy wants to become a fixer?

One of my players right now is a bar owner. He bought the bar with a fake ID at the end of the last campaign but wanted to keep the character for the new one. I said "OK, it costs you 5 karma pool in perpetuity to keep the bar running (this was just to keep him on the same page as some starting characters). We can presume that since you do not devote yourself full-time to keeping it profitable, the profits and operating costs balance each other out." He was okay with this. In the end, the team ended up with a new hangout, there were no game breakers, and I have lots of material for atmosphere and plot hooks. Seemed like a fair trade.

How about an example or more specifics on the this case?

I've mentioned this once before, I think, but the way this happened to my character in the campaign I played in before was a natural outgrowth of the character's long-term development.

It all started when we did a "black book" job for a UCAS Intelligence officer. I'd been reading up on permits and the like, and negotiated for a Security permit* backed by a solid ID in lieu of payment - trivial for him, but a definite windfall for me.

To have the security permit, I needed to be a security firm. Fair enough, a small security firm specialising in executive protection (read: bodyguarding) was registered as part of the deal. A couple of runs later, after seeing me able to carry pistols and once even an SMG quite legitimately while out and about, one of the other players asked if he could get a permit like that. Simple, said I - I'll "hire" you; that's how it works. Obviously, before long the entire team were "employees" of this semi-fictitious company. Then I had the idea of selling permits to other runners. My character, like most of my shadowrunners, had certain moral and ethical standards, and so it quite naturally followed that so did the people he was willing to sell to. All these people, of course, were listed as "employees".

Then the GM sprang a twist on me. Quite out of the blue, someone rang the company number wanting to hire a couple of bodyguards. I was about to politely make excuses, when it occurred to me - sure I could supply bodyguards. I had a pool of reputable shadowrunners, didn't I? It was like being a Mr. Johnson, but legitimate.

After a while, the firm became a fairly regular earner. When the time came to retire the character (everyone else was on new characters, and my guy was overshadowing them), we simply decided that he "went legit" - well, mostly, anyway

One of my players (who is an accountant in real life) just started looking into this option and has been putting forward some very interesting ideas - we've been discussing how incorporations could be used in the campaign. I've made it clear to him that the main benefits of having a company would be money laundering and added security in their shadowrunning activities (i.e. the corporation becomes an extra link in the chain of communication and can be dissolved to stop or delay investigations into the PCs' work).

I don't see end-user certificates (or even some permits) for security / military gear being available to any but the largest corps with a physical presence that can be inspected, audited, certified, etc... That means that at most, my players will be able to anonymously own a small corporate entity registered offshore in a tax haven like HK, the Carib League or even some of the smaller jurisdictions in Europe. I'm assuming that in those locations there are (as today) legal firms specializing in the quick & painless setup of corporate entities; privacy is ensured by the heavily protected network of the legal firm and maybe the backing of a criminal syndicate or two (think of the database that almost fries Bobby at the beginning of Gibson's Count Zero). So the runners channel their payments offshore and have the clean cred - minus a random percentage, maybe 5d6% each transaction ? - distributed to their various IDs for "consultancy work".

Of course this costs money, and right now I'm leaning towards the same system as for credsticks, payable every year (does that rule already exist in one of the books ?). At least one ID has to be provided to the legal firm, at a rating equal or higher to the corporation rating the PCs want to establish. Higher corporation ratings equal more legal protection against investigation, and allow the owners to launder more money. I might even allow some permits or licenses for the PCs if their corporation level is high enough. Note that this level of expense only buys the PCs an incorporated entity, an electronic address offshore and a message inbox - no physical premises, no dedicated employees, no registration to any corporate database in other jurisdictions.