2013: Not Just New Calendar Year

It’s a new calendar year, and if your corporation—like so many corporations—chose December for your fiscal year end, a new bookkeeping year as well.

Whether you filed your Articles of Incorporation last year or last decade, your business may have had any number of additional responsibilities: state and federal taxes, business licenses or permits, DBA registrations, and so on. But are those requirements still current?

Permits expire, taxes must be paid, and renewals must be filed. There’s no time like 2013 to reexamine your corporate compliance requirements!

Keeping Your Business Compliant in 2013

What are your corporation’s compliance needs?

That depends to a great extent on your state, as many requirements (and their deadlines) are specific to state rather than federal laws. But here’s a list of possible deadline issues your business could potentially face in 2013. Maybe one or two will jog your memory!

1. Fictitious Names or DBAs—if your corporation is operating under an assumed name, that assumed name may expire and require a new filing. Think it might have been 5 or 10 years (common DBA registration periods) since you started your Fictitious Name? Might be worth a phone call to your Secretary of State or County Clerk!
2. Business Licenses and Permits—Depending on many factors (your industry, your city and county jurisdictions, your entity type), you might be required to hold any number of business licenses and permits, from sales permits to hair salon licenses. Make sure you’re in compliance, either by careful diligence or by hiring a professional.
3. State Records—Have you moved in the last year? Changed registered agents? Email addresses? These are just a few ways that correspondence from your Secretary of State’s office may have been disrupted—which means you may not be aware of policy changes and compliance reminders. Check out your record with the state’s database and make sure all information is up to date; if it isn’t, change it.
4. Annual Reports—Think back. Do you know when you last filed your Annual Report? Don’t panic; in your state, it might be a Biennial Report, or even a Decennial Report—so if this isn’t ringing a bell, it may be that it doesn’t apply to you. But it also may be that you just forgot (or the state wasn’t able to contact you with a reminder). It’s worth a look at your Secretary of State’s corporate information page just to be sure!

This is, of course, just a sampling of potential compliance issues your corporation might face in 2013. It’s always a good idea to consult with a corporate lawyer or legal advisor to determine your requirements—but hopefully the list above can get you started!

Best of luck in 2013!

We wish you the best of luck with your corporation—and remember, Click Industries gives you the tools you need to succeed!