Need a business license? Need to pay city business tax? Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, Everett joining up for FileLocal.org

Just in from the city, news of potential interest to our fellow small businesses:

Next fall when businesses in the region’s four largest cities want to get a local business license or need pay their local business and occupation taxes, they’ll be able to do it through FileLocal™. That’s the new name given to a multicity business license and tax portal that will provide cost savings for businesses, reduce administrative costs for cities and improve access to local license and tax information. Along with the new name there is a website, www.FileLocal.org, to provide businesses information about the upcoming portal.

“The name ‘FileLocal’ captures exactly what this new service is all about,” said city of Seattle Finance Director Glen Lee. “FileLocal will greatly simplify what a business needs to do to get or renew a city business license, or calculate and pay local B&O taxes.”

Officials in Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue and Everett have been working on developing the concept behind the service since 2010. This summer, the group hired an experienced Louisiana-based technology firm, e-Gov Systems, to build and test the site.

“FileLocal will launch next fall,” Lee said. “We wanted to give the vendor adequate time to build the site, but also ample time to test and retest it.”

The service will benefit 90 percent of businesses statewide that pay local B&O taxes. After its launch, other cities may choose to subscribe to FileLocal to simplify licensing and tax filings for their businesses.

The nearly 30,000 companies operating in more than one of the four cities will especially welcome FileLocal. Those businesses need only enter their profile information once, then for each reporting period add in their sales data. FileLocal will use city-specific rates and special incentives to compute the total due from the company across all of the cities in which it does business. The company will then enter payment information, either EFT or credit card, and FileLocal will distribute the funds to meet the amounts due in each of the cities.

Businesses can visit www.FileLocal.org to find more information about the portal.

CB November 25, 2013 (9:39 am)

B&O tax is nothing more than a income tax on business owners. To add insult you are taxed on your gross receipts.

DarkHawke November 25, 2013 (4:59 pm)

Since when do business owners pay taxes? Yes, you pay money directly to the government, but that expense, as with all the others, goes straight in to the overhead portion of the price you charge to the consumer. Nothing wrong with that, of course. That’s just the way businesses work. But let’s not kid ourselves about the effect of raising taxes on businesses vs. John Q. Public: John’s the one who ultimately foots the bill, every time. Let us all remember this the next time someone rails about taxing the “fat cat” businesses in the area. They’re actually saying, “Let’s make life more expensive for everyone!”

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