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by cactusplant7374 239 days ago
Can the average person lease a laptop or just businesses?
2 comments

You can almost certainly lease if you really want to but the usual benefit is more enjoyed by a company (no capital expense, only operating expense, defined, and steady).

As an individual, you can get the exact same laptop for $333.25/mo (for 12 months) right now with 3% cash back and 0% interest on the Apple Card. That's only a little over twice the monthly cost, and you're done in 12.

Sometimes you can find pay over 24 or even 36 which would make it even lower. Add in AppleCare and you're probably ahead as an individual.

Business taxes and others change this, or if you KNOW you will need it only for a year, or must have the latest and greatest every time.

(Our OP spends 3780€ over 3 years and doesn't even own it at the end; but the financial tax advantages can be huge and make it worth it, so much so that founders sometimes will make TWO companies, one to buy the capital item and lease it to the actual startup.)

I don't think they officially support leasing to individuals directly, but it's very easy to setup a leasing/biz account with them as a business. I think any Apple store has a POC there that can help / see: https://www.apple.com/shop/finance/business-financing

You can very easily setup an LLC and obtain an EIN. It's been a minute since I've setup an Apple financing account, so I don't recall what they require on the finance side. I'm certain they will want to see some sort of financial proof, but I doubt they will care much if you're not a proper operating biz. I'm not sure if proof of finances will need to be linked to a banking account under the business name, but if so, that's easy enough to setup with an ebank once you have an EIN.

All of that being said, the tradeoff will be if you're willing to deal with the potential state/federal tax and biz reporting requirements of having the business. It's not hard esp if it's not a real active business, but just another thing to deal with.

If the laptop is stolen are you on the hook for the whole thing minus some depreciation?
Yes, but that's what insurance is for - pretty much every business will have business & office equipment insurance, which should cover it.
locally, last i checked, an LLC costs ~$20/yr ... so yeah. easy.
I have one which I haven't really used though probably a useful thing to have. But be aware of various other fees like annual state fees. It definitely costs more than I was thinking it would once all the costs are taken into account. For a lot of purposes just using a DBA is probably fine.
Nice. In california it’s $800/yr
It's even easier and cheaper to set up a trust and get an EIN that way.