Registration of a small business
 

Hello,

I am a little lost to the extent that I don't know what I need to have in order to be compliant.

Here is my situation
-I am on E-3 visa and wife is on E3D
-Wife does some online sales (ebay) of jewelery and handicrafts
-Later this month she plans to be a vendor at some local fairs

The confusion is around what do we need to be compliant to the various laws. Resale number? Register for a Permit or License?

Thank you in advance for your input. Just FYI - our current sales range from 600-800 a month. We will be talking to an accounting around taxation etc little later in the year.

Thank you.

Re: Registration of a small business
 

Has your wife got her Employment Authorization Document? Is self-employment allowed on this status?

Other than that, the answer is going to depend on your state/county/city.

Also, any profits need to be included on your tax return.

Re: Registration of a small business
 

Yeah, if she's allowed to work on that visa, it'll all depend on where abouts you live.

Some fairs probably don't even need you to be a registered business, you just pay for your spot and do your thing, but many of the bigger county fairs will need to see you're registered if for nothing else, for the liability insurance situations.

Edit: check out local chamber of commerce office, they should be able to help you out with anything you'd need to do and probably with local fairs to go to etc.

Re: Registration of a small business
 

She had EAD. I thought she can work for anyone including herself ???

The one fair we want to go to is in Cupertino,CA. I checked their (Cupertino chamber of commerce website) they ask for "resale no". I am doing bit more research and I think we need a sellers permit OR a resale #. We don't live in Cupertino. We are in walnut creek. Not sure if that's makes a difference.

Thanks

Re: Registration of a small business
 

You probably need a seller's permit ...

Re: Registration of a small business
 

Thanks. We have done further research. Apparently sellers permit and resale number are one and the same.

We live in Contra Costa so I assume we just have to get a sellers permit here which will be valid for sales wherever wr sell right?

Re: Registration of a small business
 

Since the seller's permit is issued by the state I assume that it is good anywhere in California.

Re: Registration of a small business
 

Thanks, we are calling Contra Costa commerce dept tomorrow.

Cheers,

Re: Registration of a small business
 

Are you registered for sales tax ?, you may find that the organiser of the event is required to submit vendor information to the tax dept.

Re: Registration of a small business
 

That is what the sellers permit is for.

Re: Registration of a small business
 

We have not done anything except for my wife setting up some business plan and getting some products from overeas as samples.

The moment we started thinking about going to fairs etc, we were faced by lots of 'we want this' 'we want that'....so it's now time for us to think and get more information so that we do the right thing.

The idea was to just sell stuff on ebay and declare the profits as income. But we are reading into it more.

I had a question. Usually sales tax and other stuff, they ahve certain limits within which one does not necessarily have to do all these time consuming applications. I respect if I had to do them but for a $500 sale at best a month, it seems to me that there is just too much involved...again of course I want to do the right thing.