People often wonder how to cancel an existing FEIN (Federal Employer Identification Number, also called a Federal Tax ID) when closing a business. The IRS has information available HERE on this topic.

We can make the process of closing an existing business simple and painless! Just visit our page on Additional Corporate Filings and fill out the quote request form to have a custom quote emailed to you.

The IRS has improved the procedure for electing S-Corporation status after the filing date for the S-Corporation Election Form (Form 2553) has passed.  If you can show reasonable cause for why the election is late it is now easier to obtain S-Corporation Status after the deadline.  Information on the change can be found here.

For more information on how an S-Corporation is organized and the differences between entity types see our page on choosing an entity.

From the Book The Entrepreneurial Imperative:

For the United States to survive and continue its economic and political leadership in the world, we must see entrepreneurship as our central competitive advantage. Nothing else can give us the necessary leverage to remain an economic superpower. Nothing else will allow us to continue to enjoy our standard of living. We either support and nurture increasingly entrepreneurial activities in all aspects of our society and around the globe, or run the very real risk that we will become progressively irrelevant on the world stage and suffer economically at home.

(via Dr. Cornwall)

Wonderful news from Newsweek:

Entrepreneurship is transforming America—not just for a few, but for all of us and for the better. Consider: Today roughly 45 million Americans, about 30 percent of the labor force, run their own businesses. Sometime during their careers, well over half of university graduates will start a business. Most Americans today work in firms that have entrepreneurial teams in charge. And most U.S. job growth and new technology comes from entrepreneurial companies. In short, ours is no longer an economy of big, old, stable corporations. Yes, we have many of those. But increasingly, we live in an economy of new, rapidly growing (and sometimes rapidly declining) entrepreneurial companies. America is unique in the world, a nation rebuilding itself on the principles of entrepreneurial capitalism.
(via BizOpps)

From the Small Business Administration comes statistics about small businesses (PDF) from the years 2001-2004.  Overall, Small Businesses (firms with less than 500 employees):

• Represent 99.7% of all Employer Firms.
• Employ half of all private sector employees.
• Have generated 60-80% of all new jobs annually over the last decade.
• Create more than 50% of nonfarm GDP.
• Produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employees than large firms.
• Employ 41% of high tech workers.
• 53% home-based and 3% franchises.

The Congress is proposing some changes to the law that governs S-Corporations including:

1. changes to the way “Passive Income” is classified and taxed (eliminating the hidden “double taxation” by classifying dividend income correctly).
2. allow more than one class of stock.
3. allow non-resident aliens to become shareholders.
4. allow flexibility in the 75 day deadline to file for an S-Corporation.

Overall, I think all these changes would be great, which is all the more reason to form an s-corporation today!

You can view the full text of the proposed changes here.

(via Dr. Cornwall)

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council has ranked congressional delegations by State according to how they voted for small business issues like lowering taxes, reducing regulation, etc.

Here are the top 10 States:

1 Idaho 95.7
1 Oklahoma 95.7
3 Alaska 94.3
3 Wyoming 94.3
5 Utah 92.4
6 Kentucky 92.1
7 Alabama 91.0
8 Nebraska 90.6
9 Kansas 88.6
10 New Hampshire 87.0

Note that only one of these is in the Northeast (New Hampshire) and that the rest are either in the south or the West.

The Bottom 10 is made up of the usual suspects (with the exception of North Dakota):

41 New Jersey 41.6
42 Connecticut 41.2
43 New York 38.9
44 Maryland 35.2
45 North Dakota 33.8
46 Maine 30.9
47 Hawaii 24.1
48 Rhode Island 18.1
49 Vermont 15.7
50 Massachusetts 12.2
Every single one of these states is in the Northeast with the exception of Hawaii and North Dakota.

Read the whole report here.

(Via The Entrepreneurial Mind)

From a report at the Kauffman Foundation:

Our economy is generating: 

- 5,568,000 new businesses a year
- 107,077 new businesses every week
- 15,297 new businesses every day
- 637 new businesses every hour
- 11 new businesses every minute

Dr. Cornwall: “Any question that the US is now in an entrepreneurial economy?” 

Top 10 reasons to become an entrepreneur from Everyday Entrepreneurs.

This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up!