Steps to starting a small business start with forming an LLC or a corporation, but beyond this action to protect your personal assets from corporate debts, many other matters must be considered. You need competent professionals to assist you with some of those matters, including trademark search and trademark registration (if you want to protect your intellectual property) and tax advice structured to fit your own particular situation. We will be pleased to be help you with respect to trademarks, and with regard to the question of taxation, no one is in a better position to advise you than the competent professional who has been preparing your individual tax returns. Other matters require only common sense, and legal, tax and accounting advice with respect to those matters is not necessary in the absence of unusual problems. You will save money if you handle them yourself. A good example is obtaining local licenses.

OBTAINING SMALL BUSINESS LICENSE

Ordinarily, obtaining a business license is simple: call your county or municipality, ask for a simple form, fill out that form and send it back with a check for the license fee. Normally, such a license is nothing more than another tax. Think of it this way: if you submit the form (answered truthfully) and they take your money, that is normally the end of it. No third party can recover money from you, or take your property away, because you didn't do it "right". Many other matters which need your attention when you start a business are just as simple to deal with.

We know, however, that clients are often not sure how to distinguish between matters where competent, professional advice is necessary and matters where it is not. After we form a corporation or LLC or register a trademark, clients often ask about these matters. As a service to our clients we will construct a Client Login section of this web site where we will post material which will assist existing clients, as well as a list of small business ideas.