regs and licenses and corporation

[dapreachaman]

what are the rules where you live?  How many of you have a business license?  Have any of you filed to be a corporation?  Do you have any special insurance on your machines and to cover your family?  Just curious.  I have several machines and am headed out to get a business license on monday.  i have not filed for corporate benefits.  thanks

[caserri]

Preacha,

I moved your question here to the "Regulatory Affairs" section. You should find what you are looking for here.

Steve

[alyssamma]

Where I live (Ohio) the rules are as follows:

- Sales Tax paid on soda, not on snacks or bulk items

- No special license needed

- Local taxes paid on all gross proceeds for most cities

I have an S-Corp, but run another full time business and just run the vending under that. We have liability insurance for our machines.

In general, having a corp or company (e.g., LLC) will save you some $ in taxes. With both of those entities it is possible to take cash without paying payroll (or self employment) taxes. You will, of course, still pay state, local, and fed. Still, this saves you 15.3%.

For example, if you are self employed, and give yourself $100, you only get $84.70. With an S-Corp or LLC you will get the full $100.

Note, you can't avoid all payroll taxes...just payroll taxes on a portion of your income.

As for insurance, having a corp or company (an LLC specifically) will protect your personal assets. However, the assets of the company or corporation will *not* be covered. In your case the assets would be the machines + whatever is in the comp/corp bank account - which should be very small.

Note that the cost of liability insurance is much less than the cost of your machines, so in general I would suggest getting this if you have a full line machine or more than 10 bulk machines.

Forming a corp or LLC is very easy. In Ohio it costs $125 and can be done online by yourself - no need to pay someone to do this. You get many other benefits besides what I mentioned above. For example, you can start a SEP-IRA for retirement, etc.

Keep good records. Pay local taxes where needed. Remember, mileage is your friend. You get $0.585 per mile ($0.55 starting 1/1) *tax free* for each mile you drive. This can quickly add up to a few hundred dollars per month or more.

Anyway, enough rambling. Let me know if you have any other Q.

Kevin

[lurtsman]

I'm currently struggling with this in Iowa. My attempts to dig up information have routinely fallen short.

Per: http://www.sos.state.ia.us/business/llc.html

It would appear "Articles of organization" are the only item required for me to own an LLC. Further research on the page indicates the fee for filing is 50$. How to file this online or find a full current copy of the pages I need to complete is still beyond me.

I'm still working on finding government furnished sources that will establish:

Does Iowa require a vending licenses for every machine I operate it? In some places it looked like they were asking for 20$ + 5$ per additional machine. That seems like it would really add up.

Does a USPS work for the physical address of my business? I live in a rented apartment and am not sure if I can use this address--or if I would want to since I was hoping to move within the next year.

Will I owe sales tax off my bulk candy? I did some digging it and looked like iowa sales tax laws apply to candy and vending machines must abide by the laws for whatever product they vend.

Whew, those are my challenges to deal with at the moment. Any insight is appreciated as my brain starts to feel like mush at times as I try to dig through the scam websites and find the ones with real information.