Week 5

 I learned about legal structure, licensing, and taxes this week. A lot of it was difficult to understand and find information on, but I still learned a lot. I learned about three or four different legal structures. Sole proprietor means that one person owns the business and makes all the business decisions. A partnership is where two or more people own the business and make business decisions together. An LLC can have one or more owners and provides protection to the owner(s) assets, unlike sole proprietor or partnership. I will probably start my business as a sole proprietorship, then move to an LLC. A benefit of all three of these business legal structures is that none require you to hire a CPA or a lawyer. The fourth business legal structure is a corporation, which I did not research very much.

I also learned this week that even online businesses require registering and licensing. Registering in Utah looks fairly easy, because I just have to fill out an online application and pay the associated fees. I would be registering my business and a DBA (doing business as or business name).

Business taxes are more complicated than I knew. I should have known they were, because taxes are complicated in general. I just think I had not thought of taxes in relation to my business before. I will need to worry about income tax and sales tax.

Here are some websites I found helpful for my research this week:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability_company#Advantages

https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/launch-your-business/choose-business-structure

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/guide-limited-liability-companies-4433.html

https://corporations.utah.gov/business/llc.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_tax#Effect_of_electronic_commerce

https://secure.utah.gov/account-migration/login.html?returnToUrlUtahId=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.utah.gov%2Fosbr-user%2Fuii_authentication

https://tax.utah.gov/sales#1

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