How many of you selling are a registered business?

Please don't take offense.

Years ago when we bred birds, hubby and I just made up a name, ordered business cards, and went about our business of raising and selling pet birds. We never gave much thought to the business end of things, we were young and inexperienced, and lets face it, birds are easy to come by and most everyone like them.

Now we are older, possibly wiser, and are ready to start hopefully breeding and raising ball pythons. Now, aside from the fact we will being dealing with much higher value animals than our birds ever were, we know a lot of people are "out to get" snake people so to speak.

I want to do this the right way, get a tax number, register a business name, etc. Hubby says no-one bothers with all that stuff.

So, I am appealing to you guys. How many of you out there breeding and selling your herps of any kind are a registered business? Why or why not?

Gale

My prairieland pythons is registered with the state of Minnesota......my tax guy of course says that is not necessarily needed. I registered it just because I own other business's and use to doing that.

We are a registered LLC :D

Yes, once you sell over a certain dollar value, it's required. I also wanted to be able to use my business name (Eclipse Exotics), rather than my personal name, so I registered a DBA as well.

i will be registering my name since i plan on doing business with a name thats not my own legal name. Since i've really only been doing trades or the occasional sale (ie, not breeding animals and selling babies, just the occasional single specimen) its not really been a concern of mine at this time.

I'll have a DBA and then most likely an LLC.

How do you go about registering yourself though? I hope to breed and sell reptiles as a hobby but I want to expand to be maybe medium scale instead of small scale, so I might need to do this.

Just curious, how come some of you don't want to use your legal name?

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Originally Posted by Elise.m

Just curious, how come some of you don't want to use your legal name?

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my legal name is boring and has nothing to do with snakes :) I can't legally do business unregistered as "Ancient Wing Reptiles" i (think) i can legally do business as Samantha Wenitsky's Snakes or something though. It has to do with wording and a number of other things i can't remember. lol

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

How do you go about registering yourself though? I hope to breed and sell reptiles as a hobby but I want to expand to be maybe medium scale instead of small scale, so I might need to do this.

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Typically the first step (after you figure out a name for your company and make sure it's unique so it doesn't infringe on another company's namesake) is to go to your County Clerk's office to file a DBA (Doing Business As) form.

By using a LLC ( Limited Liability Corporation) can reduce the liability you or your company, in the event of a legal matter which may or may not be caused by the actions on your property or your inventory. A fictious name is normally used and registered at the County, State and National level.:colbert2:

i pretty much do the llc and the fly under the radar

I would suggest you talk with an accountant. It's not expensive and each situation is unique. Since it's tax time maybe you can discuss it quickly when you get your taxes done. Starting a business is not that big of a deal especially if a professional assists you. There are probably positives and negatives depending on your situation.

I am registered and LLC (also have one of my pics copyrighted). For me, it's more reassuring doing business with someone that has shown that they are serious enough about what they do that they went the extra steps.:gj:

I did it for my customers (promote reassurance), so that there would be an avenue for them to take if ever I did not live up to my customer service ideas (enough plugging for myself).:oops:

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Originally Posted by broadude

I am registered and LLC (also have one of my pics copyrighted). For me, it's more reassuring doing business with someone that has shown that they are serious enough about what they do that they went the extra steps.:gj:

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Very true.

We're a registered LLP (Limited Liability Partnership) with an EIN and business license, and we have an accountant do our taxes. She knows more about keeping Uncle Sam happy than we do--and about ferreting out business expenses that we didn't think to include. Aside from reassuring the customers, being a legal entity also keeps you in good graces with the bigger breeders.

We are actually registered as a DBA with a fictitious name "Kelly's Balls", and EIN, class 3 reptile sales permit and Occupational License. The technical owner is my boyfriend Art. We registered it as a business even though we knew we would not make a profit for a couple of years on the advice of our accountant. A fledgling business can often times become a nice reducer of taxable income. :D One reason I am glad we did it is it enabled us to become fed ex certified.