Well, it’s official: I am a business! 
On Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 I got a letter from the BC Ministry of Finance that my first name choice for my sole proprietorship was available (Canadian Craft Supply Depot). On Thursday I bought two domain names, canadiancraftsupplydepot.ca and craftdepot.ca. Unfortunately craftdepot.com was unavailable, but I registered canadiancraftsupplydepot.com today and I will email the owner of the craftdepot.com domain since there is no website there right now.
So yesterday I called the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and got my business number and two accounts: a GST account and an Import/Export account. Today I registered with the BC provincial government to be able to collect PST, but that application takes a few days to complete and it’s a long weekend *sigh* 
The last step is to register on a municipal level with Vancouver City Hall to get a business license, then I can fax my license to my suppliers and they will ship me the wholesale catalogs and I can order stuff! WOOO! So what does it take to get a business?
| Completed as of Sept 2/06: |
|
| Approval to start home-based business from landlord | $0.00 |
| Reading federal tax law, provincial tax law, and municipal by-laws | $0.00 |
| Taking a tax seminar on income tax, GST/HST, and PST | $0.00 |
| Name Request application to BC Ministry of Finance | $30.00 |
| Open accounts with BCBusinessRegistry and BCeID | $0.00 |
| Provincial Business Registration as Sole Proprietorship | $40.00 |
| Registration of 2 .ca domain names through the Canadian Internet Registration Authority | $27.31 |
| Registration of 1 .com domain name in the US | $11.27 |
| Open a GST/HST account with the CRA | $0.00 |
| Open an Import/Export account with the CRA | $0.00 |
| TOTAL | $108.59 |
So I still have a few things left to take care of, but I’m hoping to finish this up next week:
| Left to do |
|
| Get Business License from Vancouver City Hall for Sept-Dec/06 | $52.00 |
| Open Business Bank Account | $0.00 |
| Get Business Credit Card | $0.00 |
| Get Business Cards | $10-20 |
| TOTAL | $62-72 |
So exciting! I thought it would cost way more to start up but it wasn’t too bad at all :) I’m actually lucky to be starting at this time of year, because the initial business license with Vancouver is $106 + $50 application fee, but since it’s pro-rated this year I only pay $52 out of the $156 and next year in January I only pay $106 for the whole year =D
