With business bookkeeping and basic tax tips for new and old entrepenuers

Thursday, March 12, 2009

DBA or Incorporation papers


Many times for tax offices and banks, you will be asked to present the documents showing your DBA, or Does Business As and your articles of incorporation if you incorporated. A Does Business As is usually applied for at your local County Clerk’s office, however you may need to check with your local government office to find out where to apply for one. This document basically tells others that you are doing business under a certain name, let’s say Sunshine Floor Cleaning, but gives the information as to who is behind that business name. This document generally has a low cost of about 20.00.

Articles of incorporation are generally applied for with your Secretary of State office and are done on a state level. These generally cost around $350.00 (filing fee). This makes the business is own entity and it then has to file its own tax reports on a local, state and federal level. Various tax offices may sometimes ask for a copy of your “articles’ which is why it is a good idea for your accountant/bookkeeper to have a copy of these. This saves you the time of having to look for these every time a particular tax office requests them. These are also often asked for when opening up new bank accounts and/or applying for loans, so keep plenty of copies or have it scanned to your computer so you know where they are.

Next : Bank and Credit Card Statements


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