City of San Diego business registration mistake :( (Sacramento: sales, how much)

[thepinksquid]

So, I goofed. Big time.

My husband and I formed an LLC in June of 2009. We registered with the state and with the fed. However, we were given some bad advice and I was told that since we have a home business, we don't have to register our business with the City of San Diego. It totally slipped my mind to look into this further but, apparently were supposed to get a Business Tax Certificate and file for our business' name a Fictitious Name Certificate. All this comes down to about $80 or so (you pay $30 or so per year too, I think). We were never contacted/sent anything in the mail, etc. telling us to file and send the fees.

Anyhow, this was all supposed to be done 40 days into doing business. It's been about 10 months now since we began.

I'm thinking of calling the City on Monday, but I was hoping someone on here might be able to let me know if I'm going to get some big awful fine for waiting so late. I'm freaking out a bit over this because I just meant to verify if what we told was true, but I just completely forgot. Ugh!

My question is... would it be better just to fill out the paperwork, send it in with the "normal" fees, and see if they try to penalize me? Or should I call to ask what the penalty (if any) would be upfront? I guess I could technically date our business as beginning this month on the paperwork, but I don't like to lie on things and I'd rather just do it fairly and not risk be hunted down for lying on the paperwork.

Thanks; I hope someone can ease my anxiety a bit.

PS--our business is considered a 'service' so we don't collect sales tax.

[moved]

This isn't true. Even if you have a home based business, the city wants your money. I filed my fictitious name statement, but didn't file for a City Business Tax Certificate because I didn't need one when I lived in Sacramento. I got fined for $110 for not having one, and I think I paid $45 per year to keep it. I just gave up my resale permit, but still had to pay last year's taxes. I'll have to look and see how much I paid.

I would go ahead and file like nothing happened, and hope you don't get fined.

[thepinksquid]

Originally Posted by moved

This isn't true. Even if you have a home based business, the city wants your money. I filed my fictitious name statement, but didn't file for a City Business Tax Certificate because I didn't need one when I lived in Sacramento. I got fined for $110 for not having one, and I think I paid $45 per year to keep it. I just gave up my resale permit, but still had to pay last year's taxes. I'll have to look and see how much I paid.

I would go ahead and file like nothing happened, and hope you don't get fined.

I'm just so annoyed with myself that I didn't check into this earlier. Grrrr....

If you don't mind me asking, when you were fined the $110 how long were you doing business without the license? And, did they contact you for the fine, or was it when you realized you had to file and did it on your own?

[moved]

It took a year before they got me with the fine. I received a letter and form in the mail to pay it, stating why I was penalized. Every city is different, and Sacramento didn't require it, so I assumed San Diego didn't either. But I was wrong!