David Crabill
@david
active 17 hours, 43 minutes agoForum Replies Created
- Posts
Usually there is some kind of exemption for charitable or nonprofit sales, but I’m not sure about sales to benefit an individual. If you are in business for yourself, that is more or less sales to benefit an individual (you), right? I don’t really know… I’d suggest you call the ag dept for more info.
You don’t report sales, aside from reporting income on taxes. One protection you would get from the law is simply being a legal business, and nobody can sue you as long as you stay within the law.
The state would never have time to sue… more likely it would be a consumer or someone who didn’t like you. This is a rare occurrence that might happen if you grew to a large size, and then perhaps a legal, existing bakery would sue you because you are clearly overstepping the bounds of the law, and taking away their potential business. Existing bakeries have a lot of overhead to deal with due to kitchen and licensing requirements, so sometimes they do get upset when they see illegal bakeries thriving.
Aside from all the potential ramifications, for me, the law is the law. It’s there for people to follow, not abuse. It’s there for a reason, and whether or not I agree with the reason isn’t a factor in my decision to follow it. There are other laws that I wouldn’t want people to break if they didn’t agree with them, so based on principle, I would change the law before breaking it. Typically when people try to change a law they don’t agree with, they begin to understand why it’s there.
Food is not necessarily non-taxable, especially at the county or city levels. Also, for events that charge an admission fee, I’ve heard that all food sold must be taxed. I’m not a tax expert, but I know that this stuff can be pretty complex and you should try to find someone in the govt who knows what they’re talking about.
You would want to get a DBA if you want to operate your business under a custom name. It does cost more, because typically you have to put an advertisement in a local paper for one month to notify the community of your business — a really archaic, unnecessary requirement, in my opinion. Alternatively, your business could simply be your first and last name, and you wouldn’t have to get a DBA.
I don’t think most small startups are in the position where an LLC makes sense. As you grow, it starts to make more sense, and you should seek legal advice for your situation. Insurance is not needed, unless an event requires it. Again, insurance becomes more important as you grow, because you have more to lose. If you haven’t read these already:
http://forrager.com/faq/#llc
http://forrager.com/faq/#insuranceI’m not sure either. I’d recommend you call the ABC dept.
No — you need to use a commercial kitchen. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial
You need to take a food handlers course that is approved by your health dept. You should contact them for more info.
No, no puedes. La comida que necesita refrigeración no califica para esta ley. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial
I really have no idea. Since homemade pet treats are usually not allowed to be sold, and cottage food operations usually don’t use copackers, this is out of my range of expertise. Perhaps your ag dept would be familiar with how others do it.
Your mother would need to become a home food processing operation: http://forrager.com/law/virginia-home-food-processing-operation/
You should contact one of the contacts on that page for more specific details.
If you’re adding them after baking, then I’m not sure those would be allowed. You should ask your health dept.
