Approaching business licensing as a WAHM

[~Shanna~]

I'm setting up a virtual assistant business and am just starting to delve into what I need to do, government bureacracy-wise. Such as, what category I use for licesnsing, etc.? It all seems a bit off, such as calling it "payroll and bookkeeping services" puts me in the same category as accountants. I can't believe it's intended that I go through all this just to do some office work out of my home as a sole proprietor.

Any advice is appreciated, I haven't researched it thoroughly yet, I'm afraid I've seen just enough to be discouraged.

[honey-lilac]

You go to the IRS website and get an IEN right on there, it's pretty much instant. Then, once you have that number it's easy to make your business an Ltd. which is what I did. You have to register your business name (you can do it online in my state) then fill out some forms and pay a nominal fee and file it at an office downtown (again, in my state) and you're pretty much done. You might also have to do a "doing business as" form (which I didn't do yet) so you can open up a business checking account (still haven't done that yet).

I don't know about other ways of doing it, but that's the basic way I did it. It was pretty easy and fast - took about two days altogether.

[desertgirl01]

Adding to what honey-lilac mentioned--in my city, you ALSO need to get a city business license. All in all, it does seem overwhelming, but once you do it, it's done (till next year)!

The hard part for me is paying the monthly taxes!! State and city, separately. That's been the hardest for me to keep up with. But I finally got November and Dec 2009 paid, and it's a very easy, online process here. So, I'm a bit less overwhelmed. Filing my personal taxes as a sole proprietor...ummm, hopefully Turbo Tax Business will guide me through, otherwise I'm clueless.

oh, btw, I just started my LLC in November 2009.

Good luck!