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General discussion

Taking my first steps into business

Mar 25, 2017 12:39AM PDT

I am currently working as a door tech at 25% commission which is good but there is no growth to look forward to.  Something inside says its time to take my shot.  Every free moment i find myself with a pad and pencil planning my steps.   I want to talk to distributors to find out what pricing plan I can expect to get into for how much product i need to buy. But distributors are not going to talk to me unless i have my business license and DBA.  To apply for a DBA, I must run the name in the paper for a couple weeks.  Even though I probably am looking at the beginning of next year before I open my doors so I would rather my boss not know anything just yet cause my employment right now is key to this being successful. Although, it seems beneficial to just pay the fees for a business license, DBA, sellers permit and my federal and state EIN at a cost of $349.95 and get that out of the way.   By doing this will i be occurring any unnecessary expenses like having to pay taxes quarterly even though I am not doing any business yet?  I figure once I am a legitimate business, I can figure on how much storage space i will need by knowing how much product i need to buy to be at the right price level for me.  Then I can figure out my marketing costs, website costs, PO box with an actual address, service software, and a call center.  Just guessing on distributor pricing, I am coming up with a figure of about 212.00 i need to make each business day and everything over that is profit.  Does that all sound right or am i missing something?

Discussion is locked

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Let me pare it down to that one question.
Mar 29, 2017 9:19AM PDT

"By doing this will i be occurring any unnecessary expenses like having to pay taxes quarterly even though I am not doing any business yet?"

Depending on your country, this varies but here, I don't pay taxes unless I had sales and of course profit.
Then again, if I had employees, you pay the employer taxes on schedule or suffer the wraith of that agency.

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Thank you for your reply
Mar 30, 2017 11:52PM PDT

Yeah I thought about that after I posted it, I tend to babble sometimes when i am not 100% confident. But you picked out the exact question I was asking. It gets a little scary at the age of 53 to start planning a business.  I lost everything after 2007 and now what I have been able to save back up I am going to gamble it on a business.  Just not an easy feeling but I am sure I will not make it where I want to be by working as an employee until i'm 65. I love the work that I do, I just don't like the way many of these companies do business and feel these companies could do so much better being a little more customer friendly.  This is most likely my last shot in which I would rather fail than regret not trying.   My refund will pay a big part in making it happen, this is why I asked that question.   I don't want the I.R.S, to have any reasons for keeping it if I can help it.  Thanks again, I can breathe a little easier.