I had a post awhile back about registering a busniess in Florida. Well that was then and this is now... I am looking for information of registering in Virginia and seeing if anyone has any insight into it.

My main concerns are that my partners are setting up a web design/hosting company. Mainly using the hosting for the design customers, and we are wondering what we have to register with the state of Virginia? Do we need to apply for a business liscense, register our name, etc? Anything else I missed... especially anything that relates to tax purposes -- considering we are over the 18 years of age limit of being tax free.

Thanks for any insight.

Regards,

JTArchie

I would imagine that you'd have to show them some proof that you run your business from that state. I can't really operate my business in NY, but register in VA.

I would also recommend you to speak with a CPA and get a free consultation regarding this.

Boris

I run a business in VA, speficially Richmond.

What I had to do was go down to the local business licensing department (located at the county courthouse building) and fill out registration papers.
They also had to approve my zoning permit, and after that I had to register the business name/trademark for $15 or so.

It was all done in the same place.

The answer depends, in part, on the structure of your business.

1) Register your business at the state level -

a) If you plan to form a corporation or limited liability company in Virginia, you will have to:

- Designate a registered agent to receive service of process on behalf of the company. (This can be another corporation or LLC, or an individual that resides in Virginia.)

- File Articles of Incorporation/Organization to register with the State.

b) If you plan to form a partnership, you will not need to register the business with the State, but you will need to file for "Fictitious Name Certificate" to conduct business under your trade name. This certificate can be obtained at the local/county clerk of the court.

2) Obtain an EIN - An EIN (federal tax ID) is required for corporations. It is not required for LLCs since they are pass-through entities (income of the business is passed thru to the owners and reported on their individual tax returns), but LLCs are allowed to obtain an EIN for banking/business purposes.

3) Obtain a business license - This can be obtained at the county level (i.e. clerk of the court)

4) Register for state tax - You may be required to register with the Virginia Dept. of Taxation (e.g. for corporate income tax, property tax, payroll tax withholding, collection of sales tax).

I would also add that an S Corp is not the same as a C Corp which it sounds like was described above.

Another good place to get some advice would be to find your local SCORE (http://www.score.org) Chapter. You can find one nearest you Here (http://www.score.org/findscore/chapter_maps.html)

Hope this helps.

The process to form an S-corp in Virginia is the same, with the additional step of applying for S-corp tax status with the IRS (one form).

Get in touch with a business lawyer and an accountant, you're going to hear all sorts of different views in this thread.

http://www.legalzoom.com/

I have not use this service but they have a lot of info on their site. I plan to go the LLC route myself...

Mulder