How's a freelancer suppose to start legally!?

So you want to start doing a job that doesn't require commuting via a cram-packed rush hour (never mind twice) and working in an office, a retail store or a factory from perhaps 9 to 5 or late evenings.  As a freelancer, you can supposedly make your own hours, choose projects you like to take on and can just sit in front of a computer in your birthday suit while working from home or a private studio (just make sure your camera for social media isn't left on).  A lot what you might've heard about freelancing could more or less be true.  Best to ask those who done it for years.

However, I'm someone who struggling to figure out how you go about starting your freelancing service as a sole-proprietorship while operating legally with my government.  You know, registering for a business permit (good for 5 years as I heard) including its fees, a GST/HST number to pay those mandatory taxes from the income you make from that business and anything else that entails to starting up.  While I'm glad when the people I ask for advice on this matter are supportive and even greater when they like my portfolio samples, I DO need more than just pep talks; I'm looking for actual steps for how you properly set yourself up for making a living while not making a lot of goof-ups with government regulations.  I'd received titbits of helpful knowledge as I went to art shows and galleries to speak with artists and writers since graduating.

So here's what I've figured out from what I gather as far:

1.  Your Business Plan: Your blueprints to the workings of your services

• Before you even consider starting, work out what you're going to be freelancing about.  In my current case, to make illustrations for publishing media that usually do sequential works for young audiences.  So in a nutshell: Doing this trade, for these customers/companies that do these projects/products, for these targeted customers/demographs.  Whatever service you want to sell to others, make sure it's something you can do professionally and be self-motivated into doing for the long term.
• Next, work out how your business is going to do this.  I've found some good samples of dummy business plans and checklists from Google and business bureaus on what you usually have to include for it:  Description of Business, Operations, Resources, Permits, Marketing, Target Audience, Finances, etc.  Regardless of which country you're working from, these are most of the basics you need to touch base with, making a organized and precise plan that explains and informs others of what and how you're going to be doing it.
• Lastly, a 10,000 word essay for english class isn't necessary.  Maybe it might if you're planning to be a big corporation like Disney, wouldn't be the expert on it.  The point of the business plan is for two reasons: 1) To get your knowledge of what running a business is like on paper and 2) if you're going to need more money from others to cover start-up costs/overhead, they'll like to know that you had planned out how to use the money effective, especially it's all a loan that's expected to be repay later.  It can be just a few, like 2 to 10 pages and it won't be set in stone where you can't edit it later if you chose a different direction or including new details.  You mainly want to be able to show others what the service is about and keep it as a personal set of guidelines for you to follow by.   If you're not sure about how to write out this plan, you should look for any local business bureaus, employment centres, any place that specialize in helping business owners, emerging or veteran for consulting help.  You should be able to get help with your business plan, plus workshops on all related-matters on business operations and they're mostly not-for-profit organizations so their services are free.
• If you do need the extra money/loan from a third party, make sure that you understand the conditions of having that loaned money.  In the case of using credit cards or your local bank branch, you're required to pay back eventually the same amount you've borrowed.  If that takes a long time to pay back, you'll have to also pay interest as a percent rate fee for any period of time (e.g. monthly) for still having that money still on top.  Depending on much you can pay down the capital (borrowed money amount) between these periods, it's ideal that you pay down the most you can afford to avoid paying extra money on un-necessary monthly interest fees.  

2.  Registering your Business:  Making yourself known

• As I understand it for Canada, you are required to sign up for a permit to operate a business in the country.  Why?  You'll be making an income within the country for one and earning any money in that country via your business is all subject to being deductible for taxes (the government's pay wage to cover its own overhead of all its services and activities in a sense).  This permit would be good for up to 5 years as I'm told and this should make you eligible for government benefits too.  You would receive a business number that the Canada Revenue Agency can keep track of your tax payments, both for income and GST/HST.
• There are several places that you can get the paperwork done to get this initial permit.  Business bureaus do offer the service of registering your business on your behalf, taking care of the paperwork for you after you provide key details of your business plan I imagine.  There is also online registration with the CRA that take care of the country's taxes.  I personally find seeking out the right forms a bit confusing on their official site but the CRA is where these forms are sent to, so they can identify you as legitimate.  
• To get this permit isn't free; depending on who you get to fill/send the paperwork with, you're going to pay a fee for both the forms and labour of processing it.  At minimum for here in Toronto, Ontario for example, it costs $60 by electronic registration and $80 by paper registration.  Some places will charge extra on top of these fees for registering via them.  
• You may need additional permits that may come with their own fees, depending on how you'll sell your work (as products at a vendor stall on the streets for example).  In every area that your business is going to involve, be sure to check for any requirements that the government will have a hand in.  It's best that you and the government work together via the proper channels to help each other out as you both bring in benefits for the other and self.

3.  Running the business: Keeping Score on everything

• As you do your craft, you'll be making transactions on trade of goods with money and vice versa when you need some goods.  While it can get confusing to keep track on who owes what, it's essential that you make a record on everything.  Good bookkeeping or accounting skills will practically save you here when it comes to double-checking on what's been done for clients, who have yet to pay, but mostly for when it's time to do your tax reports (for some, this can be more than annually).  Whatever way you go about recording everything, be it by notebook, online banking or filing receipts in categories, keep a copy of every paycheque and expense that occur in each fiscal year (financial year concerning the government) of your business.  This is in case of any inaccurate calculations or need of "proof of purchases" on your tax reports and to avoid being audited hopefully.
• While you DO have to pay part of your income towards taxes, there's no fixed decimal percentages nor flat rates to what amount you'll need to pay each year.  The government won't ever charge you for taxes in greater amount than what you make (which means you should carefully not spend too much of your income).  Experimenting with an app called TurboTax Refund Calculator, it showed that the income tax rate slowly increase in decimals the higher the annual income gets.  In some provinces, you can make close to $10,000 without being taxed for it but you still need to report that to the CRA.  In addition, the government will actually refund to you some of your income if you haven't made enough to be taxed.  Whatever amount of income you make via your business, it's smart business sense to save part of it for taxes, like for health emergencies.  
• Other than for paying income tax, you'll eventually need to charge your clients GST/HST and/or PST (for products) along with your service bill.  You can only charge these taxes to clients residing within the same country as your workplace if you work globally.  In Canada, this is included with your business number, with its own number adjoining.  You can voluntarily register for your GST/HST number beforehand; the minimum amount of made income required to pay for these taxes are $30,000.  If you make this much within a year, you must get registered and begin charging the GST/HST rate with your service bill (.05% for GST, .07% for PST and .13% for HST (the GST and PST joined together)).  If you make the $30,000 within just a quarter of the year (that's a 3-month period), you're required to register soon afterwards (I think you may need to also report in your income on a quarterly basis if this happens repeatedly).  I think too if you were to sell your work as products, you'll have to register for your PST number beforehand (when in doubt, ask the experienced).  Again, it's a good idea to save part of your income for the sale taxes along with your income tax.
• Taxes aside, you may sell your work via reps, galleries or online print/novelty stores.  Since this is where you're using a service of another business to do business, the third party will likely charge you a commission rate or flat fee from the sale of your product via their service usage.  I think you might have to consider adding the sale taxes of the country that the third party's business resides in with the bill (need to research that further).  Much about estimating the cost of production, along with commission fees, sale taxes and shipping & handling (O.o) in your billing should be part of the research you did for your business plan. 
• Lastly, you're going to pay some of your income towards government services like Canadian Pension Plan and Employment Insurance (need to research this some more too).  If you're working with others like partners or employees, you'll need to register for a payroll number (one for each employee) along with your business number.  This means to also part some of your income toward your employee's salaries (not going to be looking further into that for now).
• Now for the good stuff.  When you made a low income for your fiscal quarter/year, the government will refund some or all of your income as you're likely going to need it for overhead cost and cost of living.  In Canada, you can also have your GST/HST refunded quarterly to you. In addition, it's possible to write-off (get refunded) on most of your business expenses come tax report time.  Some expenses can only be refunded in partial percentages and others 100%, depending on certain conditions.  If you don't know know which ones for how much, hiring an accountant or accounting service can help you get the most income back on your tax refunds.  Be sure to keep hold copies of your transaction records and organized into categories (e.g. food, workplace equipment, travel, etc.); your accountant will bless you for the effort and you can avoid better the risk of being audited for inaccuracies.

Well, that's about everything I know as far regarding my business research.  This might be enough to know to just start freelancing the way I am right now; I can't help but feel that I'm still missing some crucial information on this matter.  It might be just my nerves getting the better of me.

Anyways for those who are looking for information on starting a business or freelancing in Canada, I hope that this was helpful.  If you know more information about the topics or see anything incorrect, please feel free to comment or give me feedback for my continuing research.  There are more official sites that you can visit for the latest information regarding business registration:

The Canadian Revenue Agency:

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca 

Canadian Intellectual Property Office:

http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca

Suggestion Sites

Enterprise Toronto:

http://www.enterprisetoronto.com

ServiceOntario:

https://www.services.gov.on.ca

City of Toronto - Doing Business:
http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=6cd032d0b6d1e310VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD&vgnextfmt=default

Vector Icons

Took 5 roughs and rendered them in Illustrator CS2.

Icon Art Sketch

Some doodles I did while working on interview answers.

Wooden Canadian Goose

For over a month, I've been painting this wooden bird planter.  Having found this woodwork on the curb in my neighbourhood, it started as looking weather-worn with wood strips that you would find for old plastered drywalls.  I started by washing and sanding as much roughness off and then between several days at a time, primed and painted with oil paints.  After a protective coat of double boiled linseed oil that I let sun-bake for a few days, I've hot glued two clear glass beads in the eye sockets and gave it a decorative ribbon as a finishing touch.

I had looked up photos of different long-necked birds for what to paint this bird as; I came down between a white farm goose and a Canadian goose (you can see what resulted).  I chose oil paints because this will help preserve the wood better from the rain and keep the paints' vibrance longer.  So now that it is done, it could be used either as a decorative yard piece, as a planter again or an indoor piece.

I had hoped to complete it back earlier this month for a birthday gift when a particular person was visiting (less costly on shipping fees), I could instead sell it.  Maybe during a yard sale; with my Dad having home dialysis getting set up, my parents need to get rid of some things.

Wooden Canadian Goose, 2013
Found wood, glass beads, oil paints with double boiled linseed oil.

Birthday Illustration to my Aunt Janet.

Drawn, inked then coloured with Photoshop CS2.

Becoming a Better Professional

I would've appear to be almost invisible when it comes to having a presence in the world wide web (with the exception of some social and job board sites).  I'd became distant from working regularly on my blog and gallery sites; mind you that I'm still working away on outstanding projects but not much progress gets done.  Sometimes, it seems that I had placed too much on my platter and just bouncing between my projects and other necessities while not making any real headway.   Basically, a lot of project clutter.  I'm fixing a lot of things in my life that needs to change.

I'm deciding to designate my tasks to certain days of the week.  I want to clear off more things faster so I can work more for the future rather than dealing with backlogs.  However, there's a routine that I'm going to do each day that afterwards I'll then commit my remaining time to that project for the day.  Working with my online presence is going to become part of that routine as I want to build my rep and credibility (especially since I can't afford to print out stacks of postcard promos right now, even though I've switched bank accounts to save my money more recently).  When you want to be something or someone different, you have to start acting it and showing it.

Some Quick Re-arranging

Hiya.  I've re-arranged the chronological order of my portfolio so now you'll see the newest pieces first, rather than my oldest ones.  Something that I should've done sooner.

For all dog owners

Here's a recent piece, based on recent news reports about dog owners leaving their dogs inside their vehicles while on trips.  There's been two cases in the news, where one dog had died due to dehydration from inside its owners' car while outside under the sun.  Despite a narrowly-opened window, the air inside was heating up quickly.  Even after paramedics had broke into the car to get the dog out to revive, the poor dog died shortly afterwards.  The owners were charged for negligence who were inside an air-conditioned mall when this happened.

As an animal lover, this had affected me and I felt inspired to make this piece.  Hopefully the message here can teach others to be more careful about where to leave their animals.  It's in display on my editorial page right now.

My "New" Other Galleries Page

I got around to putting up my links to my other galleries, ones that are older than both this blog and my old website.  If you're interested in seeing how I've progressed over the years, click on over to the new page tab to access them.  I still update them from time to time, so it isn't all ancient stuff.  Here's one piece that will be posted up there soon, once approved.

Details about this piece will be explained on Elfwood.  Later.

What's a "Call for Artists"? An Definition of sorts

No one on the Internet bothers to help describe what a "Call for Artists" was about.  I was looking this term up just out of curiosity and only found lots of art competitions and upcoming gallery shows.  Other words for the same term are: Call for Submissions, Submissions, Call for Entries, Art Competition, Art Show, Juried Art Show, Art Contest, Exhibition, Festival, Showing, etc.

Based on what I explored, a "Call for Artists" posting is similar to a "Help Wanted" sign; it's like a job opening for artistic workers.  Some job banks/boards that I've explored thru had posts from art-related companies like Starz Animation and Ubisoft for openings like: lead artist, FX artist, background artist, concept, modeller, etc.  There aren't any posts usually for illustrators to draw/paint a picture for a magazine article or renovate a new website design or make CGI (computer-generated imagery) for a digital media, except sometimes on art-specific job boards.  Being an artist for a living means finding your own job, with little to non-advertised openings, lots of cold-calling and running your own business as PR, Accountant, Lawyer, Administer, Courier and Retailer.  It's not all about drawing and painting.

Back to the point of discussion, I was looking up "Call for Artists" to see what kind of things were involved.  It seems similar toward an job interview for retail, office, or any workshop: you're getting your works of art analyzed if it's appropriate for a project/assignment or qualified for a show's theme; sometimes you need pay to enter into the event.  It does include also a cover letter explaining your reasons for the work you're submitting, your Curriculum Vitae (record of your achievements and past jobs; resume) and then prepping your works for a polished, professional presentation. After being given the "thumbs-up", you can go on to displaying your work for the show's venue.

Now for different reasons, artists enter into these events for either exposure, sales and awards.

• Getting exposure would be like advertisement or promotion for your services but on a local or regional in-person level.  You may get to meet individuals in the same field as you to build up your network/connections too.  
• As with all jobs, making some income to supply your services and other necessities is important.  Most shows would allow you to sell your original or print works and other products with your work for profit and cover your expenses.
• Lastly with contests, this can give artists both resume reference and prizes.    Having your works receiving an award can boost your reputation for more work and the monetary worth is helpful too to help you keep working on your art.
• One final reason would be that it's having the passion for making art.  

So with seeing a "Call for Artists" either in newsprint or online, it states an opportunity for a creative person by hobby or trade to break out their materials, produce an idea and engage in an event for fun and benefits.

August 16/12:
I found an online PDF by Americans for the Arts that explains "Calls for Artists" more in-depth, with other resources and advice.

Their Resource Guide:
http://www.americansforthearts.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2013/by_program/networks_and_councils/public_art_network/CallForArtistsResourceGuide.pdf
Their website:
www.artsusa.org