4 Facts You Need to Know About Operating a Business in Illinois
Brad Smith • October 25, 2019
The Illinois Department of Commerce has published an excellent guide to starting a business in Illinois.
Among other helpful tips, we’ve pulled out four facts you need to know about starting and operating a business in Illinois.
1. You Must Register Your Business Name If It’s Different Than Your Legal Name
When we wrote about the things you need to know before starting a business in Illinois, we included this fact.
However, here’s a little more detail about it.
According to the handbook, the Illinois Assumed Name Act
requires businesses operating as sole proprietorships or general partnerships
register with their local county clerk’s office when their business name is different than the owner’s legal name or names. The handbook gives the example that “‘John Doe’ would not need to file, but ‘John Doe’s Cleaners’ would.”
Further, businesses would need to register in each county where the business is located.
2. You Might Need A License To Operate
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) is the agency that issues licenses and registrations for certain types of career. These include:
- Acupuncturist
- Embalmer
- Nurse
- Shorthand Reporter
- Wholesale Drug Distributor
To see whether your profession is regulated by IDFPR, click here.
3. You Should Know The Major Taxes
The tax liability of each business will be different depending on its structure, size, and type of operation.
Here is a summary of the taxes most businesses should be familiar with:
- Income Tax - Most business types are required to pay income tax on net income
- Sales Tax - This grouping of taxes is further broken down into use tax, retailers’ occupation tax, service occupation tax, and service use tax. Illinois offers more than a dozen exemptions for sales tax, including sales made in interstate commerce and charges for service or repair labor.
- Property Tax - “All for-profit real estate owners are required to pay property taxes,” says the handbook.
- Withholding Tax - These taxes, such as income tax, Social Security, and Medicare, are withheld from employee wages and remitted to the government.
4. You Can Protect Your Intellectual Property
Three methods help protect your intellectual property.
- Patents - These property rights help protect new and useful inventions or process.
- Trademarks - These can be filed at the federal or state level, and each offers different levels of protection.
- Copyrights - These allow authors the ability to control copying of their work.
We found this guide to be a helpful resource in starting your business in Illinois.
If you have further questions about this handbook or starting your own business in the Land of Lincoln, please be sure to contact us.
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