Legitimizing a pre existing form of income.

by Steve Edwards
(Boise, ID)

For the past several years, I have been earning addition income from cleaning houses. My clientele has been mostly just friends and relatives and used to just subsidize the wages from my primary job. Lately, the opportunity for me to increase my clientele has risen and my income from this has surpassed that of my other job to the point that I would like to discontinue that occupation and continue in the direction that holds the profit.

What I would like to do is legitimize my business so that I can be comfortable and confident taking on a larger amount of clients, operating a web page and hiring employees if need be.

What steps should I take to make my business official?

YOUR ANSWER

Hi Steve

While I could tell exactly what the steps are to set up or legitimize your business in Australia I am not sure exactly what the steps are in Boise ID.

So while I can give you a general idea, it might pay for you to do a bit of research about what you need to do to meet government (tax and business registration agencies etc) in your jurisdiction. Most government departments have pretty good websites these days with quite a bit of information online. All you need to do is to type in 'business names Boise' or 'business registration Boise' into a search engine and the website should be returned in the search results.

Generally to legitimize your business you need to organize a legal business name - we call it registering a business name, I think it is called a 'doing business as' name in the states. You also have to introduce yourself (kind of) to the tax office. In Australia we have to register for and ABN (Australian Business Number) which helps the tax office to keep track of our business operations. And if our revenue is likely to be above a threshold we also have to register for GST (goods and services tax).

I have no idea what the tax obligations are of a small business in your jurisdiction so all I can suggest is that you check out the website of your own government tax office or to talk to an accountant.

Talking to an accountant is usually a good thing to do, he or she can also help you to work out what you need to do to keep the records for your business and often can provide advice on how to manage the business as well.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.