Hi, I am a Canadian citizen and have a wedding business that has Canadian clients and have recently been approached by many US clients that want me to plan their weddings and also use some of my other Canadian vendors. How do I conduct business with these brides in the States and ship various decor for these events in a legal manner? Do I need to register in the states, obtain any special licenses, or open a US bank account? Thanks.
Dear Visitor,
Technically you can do business in the US using your Canadian company (you would simply need to obtain an EIN for it and report its US income on a tax return).
It would of course help to have a US company that would be simply reselling the services of your Canadian company to US clients. For that matter you could register it in any state (I would suggest Wyoming or Delaware), and if you have the ability to travel to the US I would also suggest opening a US bank account for it.
As far as licensing goes, I haven’t heard of any wedding planner licenses (I even checked Washington state license list, since they have a very long one, and haven’t found any wedding or event planner licenses). But of course it would be necessary to check each and every state you plan to sell in, even though its highly unlikely that any state would have such a license.
You might need to get a reseller permit (sales tax ID), but only in those states where you have nexus and only if you sell to consumers in those states (and if your “product” is taxable in that state). Since you do all work and ship from Canada you would only have nexus in the state of formation, and if you don’t have clients in that state you don’t need to worry about sales tax.
(a) You made a typo in the card number, CCV code, expiration date, name or address;
(b) Your card balance is too low;
(c) Issuing bank has declined this transaction for some other reason related to your account.
