New city service intended to make it easier to do business in Penticton

PENTICTON – The City of Penticton continues to look for ways to make it easier to do business in the city.

Penticton recently signed on to be a part of the BC OneStop Program, a provincial initiative through the Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizens Services designed to make it easier to launch a new business or update an existing one.

OneStop provides an integrated business registration service to provide Penticton business owners with “single window” web-based access to federal and provincial public sector agencies and local governments.

OneStop allows a business to register with multiple federal and provincial public sector agencies and local governments in a single step.

It also assigns each B.C. entity doing business in the public sector a business number (BN) a unique numerical identifier that will make working with the public sector simpler, easier and convenient.

A new business will now be able to log on and apply for a City of Penticton business licence, in addition to being able to register:
– a business name
– with Canada Revenue Agency for a GST number
– with Work Safe BC
– with the Ministry of Finance for a PST number
all from one place.

The OneStop service is intended to help new business begin and existing business update their information to multiple agencies from one online location. Relocating businesses can change their address through the site, automatically notifying the many participating agencies of the address change.

The services adds to Penticton’s BizPal program, which was created several years ago to allow a business to generate a customized list of the permits and licences they need from three levels of government, simply by providing some generic information about the business.

The registry for BizPal can be found at: http://sesrvices.bizpal-perle.ca/.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.