Start your own teaching English online business
A few years before the COVID pandemic, I officially started my own online English teaching business.
Starting your own business is fairly easy. You need to do two things:
#1. Go to the IRS website and apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN)
#2. Go to your State’s website and register your business there, too.
That’s it!
How to start an online English teaching business
When I did it, I sat in a local Massachusetts Public Library and felt overwhelmed. First, I started checking out library books about starting one’s own business. They dealt with the tax laws, the trade-offs between Corporations and simpler partnerships like the LLC. It sounded fairly complicated at the time, but I soaked it all up, and when it came right down to it, starting a business only required the above two steps. Here, I go into them in furhter detail.
#1. File with Feds
Go to the IRS website and apply for an employer identification number (EIN)
#2. File with the State
Go to your state’s website and register your business with the state.
This may involve submitting a signed document or two and a small fee (it was $50 here in Colorado).Hints: To find your state website, just do a Google search for <your state> register a business. Also, for your first business you probably just want to use the LLC organization style .. it is flexible, simple, and you can change it in the unlikely event that you ever need to.
Benefits of a Business
Boom, you have a business! You can use the new EIN to get a bank account in the name of your business, to file business tax returns at the end of each year, and things can grow as much as you like from that point.
So, I followed the steps and started my own business, just before retiring from my full-time job. Initially, my new company seemed just an imaginary concept. But then a sense of reassuring power started to seep in.
Having a registered business also became lifesaving during the COVID pandemic. At the time, my child’s daycare was closed. I could no longer work full-time because I had a toddler at home with me full-time. I was able to qualify for the small business payouts from the US Government because I had an EIN number. Had I simply been freelancing teaching English, I would not have been considered an official business by the government and I would have been royally screwed.
So, sometimes it is important to make things official.
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