Becoming a legit business, business license etc

So, I have recently expanded my rat breeding and will soon be selling to public and reptile stores soon... Atleast thats the plan. I also breed Ball Pythons, not on a huge scale have 6 females goin this year and eventually want around 20-30 breeding females and 10ish males.

I am in California, what steps do i need to take to protect myself, be able to do shows and not get audited!!!! I hate numbers but IRS is super scary!!!!

Any insights would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Move out of California. lol.

One can always be audited...
The best thing you can do is keep good records. Personally, it isn't worth trying to keep up with the tax laws - I happily pay a CPA to deal with my returns...and, if I do get audited, he gets to explain what he did.

You may need to go through some sort of county/city/state entity to be permitted to breed/sell rats. That might mean inspections for cleanliness, quality of life, humane treatment, etc. I would personally do the research on all of that stuff before spending the money to get a business license.

Steps to getting the legal stuff set up. I hear it can be pretty expensive to get a business license in CA so research/plan for that too: http://www.ci.la-habra.ca.us/article.cfm?id=734

Originally Posted by hhmoore

Personally, it isn't worth trying to keep up with the tax laws - I happily pay a CPA to deal with my returns...and, if I do get audited, he gets to explain what he did.

x2. I had thought about doing this myself, but after seeing what our CPA has to go through it is absolutely not worth messing with that stuff yourself. Keep good records and give that crap to a CPA that has experience with this kind of business. Find one early so that you can get on the same page and be able to provide everything he needs.

Thank you all will start looking around for a CPA probaly will save me alot of headaches etc