Warning: Please note that I am not an expert nor a financial advisor and you should take the following with a grain of salt. That means whatever I tell you here is what I personally experienced. I just want to share my story in hopes of inspiring you all to take action.

I am in no way saying you have to do what I do. I recommend you consult with an expert before you do any of the following. Read at your own risk!

In the previous post, I shared with you six steps to help you register your business. In this post, I am going to expand more on a few topics around taxes and additional steps you should take into consideration. Let’s begin!

Taxes!

Ugh. The dreaded topic that’s been keeping me from wanting to register my business. I hate doing taxes because it gives me a headache every year. 

I already hate doing my taxes. If I start a business, I’m going to have to do my taxes.

Yikes.

Nonetheless, here’s information I learned from my consultation with the attorney. 

How Do Taxes Work for a Self-Employed Person?

In the case of an LLC, I can pay either quarterly taxes or a one-time payment at the end of the year, but it really depends on how I want to do it. LLCs have flexibility here.

Here are some helpful tips to get you started:

• For any money that you make, put away at least 30% of what you’re earning so you can use this to pay your taxes come tax season. This is a general rule of thumb and it is usually enough to get you covered.
• Make payments through your business account and not your personal account. You don’t want to mix the two.
• File schedule C when you’re doing your taxes.
• Work with an accountant or Certified Personal Accountant (CPA), especially if you don’t know what you’re doing, which leads me to my next point.

The Two Most Important People You Should Work with When Creating Your Business

When starting a business, you need to have these two very important people:

• A lawyer (or attorney) to handle the legal stuff
• A CPA to handle all the finance stuff. 

Because I am just starting off, a lot of the financial stuff I could do myself simply because there aren’t going to be a bunch of stuff I need to file. But I recommend working with a CPA if you’re not sure how to do your taxes.

You don’t need to hire them full-time or anything. Just the one-off consultation here and there during tax season is fine, and then you can hire them officially when you start having steady revenue.

Permits, Licenses, and Zoning Permits 

Some businesses require you to have a permit or license before you operate. Think food-related or alcohol-related businesses.

Zoning permits allow you to use your home or a building to operate your business. Think hair salon or chiropractor businesses where you will need a place to operate and space for your customers to park their cars.

As my business will be solely online and it is a virtual business, permits, licenses, and zoning are not applicable here. 

I didn’t know this at first, but not all businesses require a permit, license, or zoning permit. The only time when you need to get one of these things is when your business requires you to have these things.

I know, this sounds so repetitive. But it’s kind of like the mantra I use to help me remember all this stuff.

Not sure if your business requires a license or permit? Look it up through your Secretary of State. For example, here is where I go to check if I need a permit, license, or zoning permit for my business.

What About Business Addresses?

I personally don’t want to operate my business using my home address, and so I posed the question of what other alternatives there are. But if you’re comfortable using your home address, that’s fine, too. Here are some ideas I received:

• Get a P.O box and list this as your business address. You would only use this as a physical address to pick up mail, and you don’t actually see clients there.
• Get a co-working space and list this as your business address. A co-working space is an office space where you rent it for a specific set of days or hours. You can use this as your workstation or office. You only own the space during the time that you’re renting that space. Others can rent out this space, too. Usually, you get a mailbox for being a part of this space and that’s where your mail will go.
• Get a virtual address. Check out iPostal1 here.

Do I Need a Registered Agent?

Another one of those things that I didn’t know the answer to. Essentially, the registered agent is someone who would take mail on your behalf.

This person would speak on behalf of the business, and the person who the Secretary of State would contact if anything comes up. To be honest, I am not entirely clear on this. 

But what I do know is that you can be your own registered agent. 

Do I Need To Put My Business in the Newspaper?

This is an odd one, but one I’m sure you will come across in your research. See here an example of what I mean.

Honestly, I didn’t want to bother with this step, but I wanted to make sure I was covered on all fronts, so I posed the question to the attorney, and the answer?

This is only for businesses of assumed names. By filing as an LLC, I don’t need to do this step.

That’s It!

This is the gist of my consultation with the attorney and all the knowledge I want to part with you.

Please take these for what they are and do your own research before you start a business to ensure you’re covered on all front. 

On that note, was this article helpful? What questions do you have? I can’t guarantee that I will be able to answer, but I sure as heck can point you to where you need to go next.