If you are starting a business in your home, you need to bear in mind that it is going to be able to function like any other business. Just because it is in your home does not mean that you are exempt from treating it as a business under the eyes of the law, and this is something you want to think about as much as you can early on. Many people fall into the trap of feeling that they can get away with it, but that is never the case, or very rarely, and in any case it just isn’t worth the risk. As long as you are taking care of the following few things, you can be sure of your business being in line with the law, and therefore being able to continue running in your home and hopefully earning you a decent profit.

Registration

First things first, once you have set up, decided on a name, and got going, you need to make sure that you register your business with the government. Doing so is actually relatively simple and straightforward, and is just a case of filling out a two-page form and paying a small minimal fee in some cases. However, don’t put it off until the last minute just because it is simple. You might become one of the many who have overlooked it until it is too late, and then before you know it you have people knocking on your door in the middle of the week! There is no point in not registering your business, so get going and do it as soon as you know that you are going to be running the business.

Tax

Clearly, you are always going to have to pay tax, even if you run it from home, so make sure that you’re not doing anything to evade tax, whether purposely or by accident. If you manage to get it very wrong, you might find that you have the IRS Tax Audits people knocking on your door, so it’s definitely a good idea to make sure that you are not doing anything out of place. If you are, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble indeed. To make absolutely certain that you are paying all of the ta necessary, you might want to hire a tax accountant once a year to check it over for you. That way, you don’t need to worry about it, and you can be sure of not landing yourself in that kind of trouble.

Reporting

You need to make sure you are keeping records of what happens in your business too, as this is another legal requirement. Generally the only records you need to keep are the ins and outs financially, but in some cases there might be others, so you need to check. You also have to make sure that you are keeping personnel files if you hire even just one other person. Keep this in order, and you will be safe from the arm of the law.