The application must include the notarized signature of the applicant. The law requires that the application be filed no later than 10 days after a business starts. Remember, whether you do business under your own name or a trade name, a sole proprietorship means that you are the sole owner, with all the responsibilities and liabilities that go along with a business. While a sole proprietorship is simple, it is not necessarily the best way to operate a business. Sometimes it makes sense to form a business entity for liability, business, or tax reasons.
Most people are familiar with corporations through their everyday experience with commerce.
Most of the major commercial and retail enterprises that we patronize are corporations, some of which are publicly owned by many shareholders whose shares are traded on stock exchanges. At the other end of the spectrum, far removed from Wall Street, there are the many small corporations which bring commerce to the Main Street of all of our Vermont communities. A corporation is treated as a person under the law. Certainly not a human person, but a legal person nonetheless. By thinking of a corporation as a person, it is easier to understand why creating a corporation is a matter of legal forms and procedures.