Company helps entrepreneurs, corporations through paperwork maze
When Oscar Tauber was starting his wholesale seafood business, Nanuet, N.Y.-based Seaworld Foods Inc., he spent lots of time traveling to overseas destinations to find suppliers of fish and shellfish.
Though he was within his depth in finding sources and making agreements, he was lost when it came to paperwork.
Tauber searched the Internet and found Business Licenses LLC, which has helped more than 10,000 businesses across the United States file some 50,000 licenses, permits and tax registrations at local, county, state and federal levels since its inception in 2004.
The Airmont, N.Y., enterprise sprang from an earlier company, Data Publishing Co., which supplied Fortune 500 companies with sales-tax data and systems.
Co-founders David Polatseck and Abe Brach sold that business in 2000, but their relationships with the nation's myriad taxing authorities allowed them to turn their attention to helping business owners with their licensing.
"The problem they have is they don't know whom to turn to because there's no coherent body between all the different government levels ... that tells them what they need on the other level," Polatseck said.
One of the biggest parts of his business is keeping abreast of all the changes, Polatseck said. Many licensing authorities don't notify Business Licenses of changes.
The company employs 55 people, many of whom ensure Business Licenses' document database is up-to-date.
At the company's Web site (www.businesslicenses.com), business owners can find more than 31,600 license forms and 15,000 supporting documents from nearly 20,000 agencies.
Applications can be filled out online and either mailed in or submitted electronically through the Web site. For small and mid-sized businesses, fees range from about $20 to search for applications, to $75 for a package that explains which forms are needed. For $100 more, Business Licenses will fill out the forms.
Business Licenses also serves large corporate customers that face penalties or being shut down because they lack proper licenses.
"A lot of times we act as a business-license outsource department, where the responsibility is on us to make sure they're licensed not only initially in a new location, but also that we audit their existing locations to make sure that they're in compliance," Polatseck said.
One example is Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, which has contracted with New York City-based Check Ups to create medical clinics in Wal-Mart Supercenter stores. The clinics provide minor medical services such as diagnostic tests and vaccinations. When Check Ups opens a new clinic, it hires Business Licenses to do all the licensing.
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