5 Most Important Legal Requirements You Need to Address to Start a Business in Australia | In this day and age, starting a business is very hard even without having to navigate through a maze of complicated legal rules and requirements. Be that as it may, legal regulations exist with a very clear purpose of protecting everyone involved, business owners included. The more thorough you are when performing legal requirements prior to business launch, the lesser are the chances you will face some gigantic roadblock further down the road. So, let us take a look at some of the most important legal requirements you will need to address if you want to start a business in Australia.
Select an appropriate business structure
This decision will inform a lot of other moves you will have to take while building your company. To be more precise, the business structure has a huge implication on the topics like liability, taxes, costs, and asset protection. The available options you will get to choose from are as follows:
· Sole trader
· Partnership
· Joint venture
· Trust
· Company
All these arrangements have their distinct pros and cons. For instance, a sole trader is, by far, the easiest to set up and they are very inexpensive because they entail very few legal formalities. But, as a sole trader, you are personally responsible for all aspects of your business so there’s that. Be sure to carefully research all these options before making the final decision.
Register the company for the ABN
If you are not familiar with the term, ABN refers to the Australian Business Number, an 11 digit code that is used to identify your business. Fortunately enough, this is one of the easiest steps you will have to take during business registration. You only need to go to https://abr.gov.au and fill in the form. The good news is that the whole process takes no more than 15 minutes, so you should be able to wrap everything up rather quickly. Once you get the ABN you will be able to create various accounts and issue invoices.
Protect your intellectual property
This is especially important if you plan on launching a tech start-up or any other sort of company that includes any sort of creative process or properties that can be plagiarized. Of course, this broad legal area also covers assets like IP portfolio, business strategy, and all deliverables so it is in your best interest to seek legal help in this matter. Also, taking into consideration the federal nature of the legislation it is highly advised to reach out to professionals working in your area. So, for instance, if you are starting a company in Essendon, be smart and hire a conveyancing lawyer from Essendon for help.
Register business name
Business name is one of the important assets you will ever have to work with when it comes to branding your company. However, even if you have the best name in the market, you won’t be able to use it unless it is registered by the Australian Government. The process is very similar to the one you had to go through when you registered the company’s ABN. So, you will need to go to http://asic.gov.au fill in the name you intend to use for the company, see if it is available and if it is fill in the appropriate form. The costs of registering your company name are 34 AUD for one year of 79 AUD for three.
Register for taxation
Once you have a business name and ABN, you will also have to register for taxation. This service is provided and regulated and by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) which issues every company with a unique Tax File Number (TFN). Fortunately, much like all other requirements we have covered in the previous sections, this task can be easily performed online. This is the point where the business structure you have chosen in step one will factor in, big-time so be careful when filling in the form. However, the ATO website contains all the instructions you need, so you shouldn’t have any problem with this one.
These were some of the most important legal requirements you will have to address to register and start your company in Australia. Depending on the type of your business you may need to address a couple of minor legislative obstacles along the way but as long as you build this foundation and have professional help, you will be good to go. So, start checking these requirements as soon as possible and make your dreams finally come true.
WorldExecutivesDigest.com | 5 Most Important Legal Requirements You Need to Address to Start a Business in Australia
