Business Licenses and Permits

Recently one of our customer service specialists received an urgent call about a business license issue in Washington D.C. Our client shared with us that on January 8, 2010, D.C. served the company for operating a business without a business license and with revoked articles of incorporation.

It was revealed that in 2009, an inspector from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs visited our customer’s store and noticed there was no Certificate of Occupancy or business license posted. This inspection ultimately led to trouble for our customer.

Having failed to file a business license in D.C. for the past three years, our customer paid a $5000 fine for not having a Certificate of Occupancy, operating under revoked status and not having the proper business license.

CSC worked with the customer to learn of the steps that were taken to obtain a business license. The customer said, “We’ve been having problems over the past six months with the city. We even have a post marked envelope from August sent to the city government that wasn’t opened until December of this year (2009).”

A customer service specialist working closely with our client also indicated attempts were made to file biennial reports and business licenses, and voicemail messages were left pleading for help, but no answer from the city was given.

After some investigation CSC learned of a few things that caused so many problems for our customer. The biennial report renewal was sent in April of 2009, but our client did not file the renewal in a timely fashion, which led to revocation. The customer sent the BBL-EZ (business license) and the tax forms via U.S. Mail to the same location as the biennial renewal, but these documents needed to be sent to two different locations. And lastly, our client applied for qualification with slight variances in names. (Ex. ‘Mike Smith’ rather than ‘Michael Smith’) The city believed our client was trying to form a new company since the names did not match city records exactly.

Had this customer initially used CSC rather than the mail these problems would have been avoided. CSC will solve our client’s dilemma by filing a re-instatement, the biennial reports and the BBL-EZ.

Visit www.cscglobal.com or contact a CSC customer service representative at 800.927.9800 ext. 5077 to learn more about our business license services.