Starting Your Business Using the Net
by Don Rittner

Everyone at one time or another wants to start their dream business, but until recently it took a great deal of time and money to do it. The Internet is making it much easier since you can gain access to many of the bureaucratic forms you need to establish a business in New York State. Actually, you can even incorporate your business without leaving your home by using the Net.

Have you ever wondered why so many companies are "Delaware"companies, that is, they all seem to be incorporated in that small state? It's because Delaware is the most business friendly State in the Union. One person can incorporate and become all officers of the company giving you complete control. Fees and taxes are small, and if you use the services of any of the online services that will do all the work of incorporating for you, the whole process is pretty easy and painless.

If you want to incorporate your business, profit or non-profit, visit The Company Corporation site (http://www.corporate.com/ ). Here you can fill in your information about your new business online, give them a credit card number, and they will do all the registration for you. They even file the necessary papers to do business in New York State (You will need to do this as a foreign company doing business in the State.). There are fees involved of course.

This company has been in business for over 100 years so they know how to do it right. If you're not sure what kind of business you want to start, they have a free guide you can obtain toll free or online.

Once you start your business you need to get a taxpayer identification number from the Federal government. You can go over to the IRS Web site at http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/forms_pubs/pubs/index.htm and download form SS-4 which is an Adobe Acrobat form (fss4.pdf). If you have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer it will fire it up and you can fill out the info on your computer and send it in.

While you are on the IRS site go over to http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/forms_pubs/pubs/index.htm where you can get a variety of free and helpful pdf files. A few that are of interest to the new business owner are: Publication 80, Circular SS - Federal Tax Guide for Employers in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business; Publication 463, Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses; Publication 501, Exemptions, Standard Deduction, and Filing Information; Publication 505, Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax; Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income; Publication 526, Charitable Contributions; Publication 529, Miscellaneous Deductions; Publication 533, Self-Employment Tax; Publication 535, Business Expenses; Publication 536, Net Operating Losses; Publication 538, Accounting Periods and Methods; Publication 541, Partnerships; Publication 542, Corporations; Publication 552, Recordkeeping for Individuals; Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping Records; Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home (Including Use by Day-Care Providers); Publication 590, Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)(Including SEP-IRAs and SIMPLE IRAs); Publication 954, and Tax Incentives for Empowerment Zones and Other Distressed Communities.

You can get all your other federal tax papers like 1040's here as well. There is another very good Web site called 1040.com that has tax forms for every state.

If you are going to conduct business that will collect sales tax you need to file for a sales tax number in New York State. You can grab the PUB-750 and PUB-750.1 pdf files from the New York State Tax Bureau (http://www.tax.state.ny.us/pubs_and_bulls/Publications/sales_pubs.htm). While you are there grab the following useful publications for new businessess:

PUB-20, New York State Tax Guide For New Businesses ; PUB-20.1, Update to Publication 20 contains information regarding unemployment insurance reform legislation and supplemental wage reporting requirements for construction employers; PUB-30, A Guide To Sales And Use Tax Incentives Within Economic Development Zones; PUB-31, Economic Development Zones Sales and Compensating Use Tax Refund Rates (1/99); PUB-34, Sales Tax Advertising Issues; PUB-70, Record Keeping for Small Businesses; PUB-717, New York State Communities-Listed Alphabetically, with Counties and ZIP Codes - for New York State and Local Sales and Use Tax; PUB-718, New York State and Local Sales Tax Rates by Community Effective March 1, 2000; and PUB-720, Sales and Use Tax Collection Charts.

Finally, if you are going to publish or trademark your products you need to formerly copyright or trademark them. Those files are available from the Federal Trademark or Copyright office. The Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov/) contains all the forms necessary, but since trademark is a tricky business that is one area where you really should consult a laywer. The copyright forms (read the law at http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/title17/) are pretty simple to fill out. You can grab those at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/reg.html.