Monday, November 10, 2008

The Things No One Can Tell You

No one can ever tell you everything they've learned from experience about running their business. So here's what I've been learning and experiencing over the past 10 months.No one can ever tell you when you cross the line between a business and a hobby. When does it happen? It's not like after you've sold "X" amount of gadgets you're suddenly legit. I think it happens when you realize how much you need to organize and keep track of your expenses, when you see you're making a profit instead of just putting it back into supplies or maybe it happens when you make that first sale.I think I've fallen into all three here. I need to get more organized about my expenses and get official starting in December. I hope that I won't owe anything already but there's alot I'm paranoid about. I've always been paranoid about how business taxes work. Like:

-will I be over taxed-Will it become a hassle to collect-how do I keep good records of my sales
-will I under pay on taxes
-will I owe
-do I need business insurance
-how the hell do I file them? quarterly? yearly? bi-yearly?
-Do I only need to charge for the state of Ohio tax,
-do I charge county tax of where my business is based.
-What if I don't sell anything in State do I still pay taxes?If only there were classes on this stuff in my area. I'm sure there are but how on earth do I find out?

Our county office is a cess pool of fail so I'm more than intimidated about finding out how the heck I go about this becoming "Official" bit.I feel better writing it all out. It means I'm seriously pondering all this madness. I'm not trying to evade anyone or anything it just feels so overwhelming. I mean will it be a benefit to be official like this? I don't know? It's not like I can say, oh wait I've changed my mind unregister me!I know a lawyer I'm sure she can advise me in the legal matters of taxes and whatnot or at least push me in the right direction of where to seek out the answers.Personally it's exciting and scary all at the same time. My family doesn't really have any entrepnuers, my dad's dad was, but that was AGES ago. It would go along with all the other first I've been thru in my life. 1st Born, 1st to Graduate HS, 1st to go to College, 1st to be financially independent, 1st house.....all that stuff. Being new to something shouldn't scare me, but it does. It's always the unknown that frightens people the most. So I'll just have to do what I do every time I try something new and that's research, think, and leap.

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