My husband receives a lot of “flag-waving” e-mails from his friends, some of which annoy me because they often end with the chorus of, “It’s all the fault of the politicians!” or “blame the lawyers!” But there was one–when taken out of its “(sigh) for the good ol’ days when Mom just stayed home to raise the kids and we didn’t have so many laws” context–made me stop and think.
There are a lot of laws that business owners need to follow. There are laws concerning how to form the entity that is your company, how to handle decision-making in your business partnership and what rate of interest you can charge on your contracts. There are many, many laws about how to deal with your employees. And there are volumes of laws about the taxes a business is required to pay. Relatively few taxes were imposed 100 years ago. And while I’m not a proponent of going back to “days of yore,” I do admit that running a business is made more complicated as a result. That’s why it’s so crucial for business owners to have a good advisory team. The basics include an accountant, an attorney, a banker and an insurance broker. For no one person can know everything there is to know about building and running a successful enterprise, especially when there are so many taxes floating around (which, if not paid timely or properly, could cost you penalities and interest). Do you know which ones in this list you are responsible for?
- Accounts receivable tax
- Building permit tax
- CDL license tax
- Cigarette tax
- Corporate income tax
- Excise taxes
- Federal Income tax
- Federal unemployment tax (FUTA)
- Food license tax
- Fuel permit tax
- Gross receipts tax
- Inventory tax
- IRS interest charges/IRS penalties (tax on top of tax)
- Liquor tax
- Luxury taxes
- Medicare tax
- Property tax
- Real estate tax
- Service charge tax
- Social Security tax
- Road usage tax
- Sales tax
- State income tax
- State unemployment tax (SUTA)
- Telephone federal excise tax
- Telephone federal universal service fee tax
- Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
- Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
- Telephone recurring and nonrecurring charges tax
This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 8:26 am and is filed under Your Advisory Team. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
- Telephone
- State and local tax
- Telephone usage charge tax
- Utility taxes
- Vehicle license registration tax
- Vehicle sales tax
- Well permit tax
- Workers compensation tax
4 Responses to “Why Running Your Business Should Not be a D.I.Y. Project”
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January 21st, 2008 at 10:48 am
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAnd there are volumes of laws about the taxes that a business is required to pay. Relatively few taxes were imposed 100 years ago. And while I’m not a proponent of going back to “days of yore,â€? I do admit that running a business is made … [...]
January 21st, 2008 at 7:18 pm
There’s one problem with this advice – it leads the small operator to think the advisory team is an actual group of people that meet together with the common goal of helping the director meet his/hers goals. That’s pie-in-the-sky. No such thing will ever happen. Accountants couldn’t care less about helping a small business, even if they say so. Accountants are so busy these days they flat out seldom give an opinion on anything, no matter how much you think you’re paying. Small business has an extremely hard time getting any accounting help. They pay through the nose, take it or leave it, and what you see is what you get. Unless you have or know an accountant, and well, personally, who wants to help you, forget it. It is YOUR responsibility to understand the accounting issues. Worse that that, do not make the mistake of putting the accountant up on a pedastal. Many of them are plain wrong about how best to do things. All they know is some tax law, and how to push the buttons to spit out completed forms. Anymore than that runs $200/hr and up. Same thing with attorneys. They will take your money, $100/hr to $300/hr, spend half that time answering questions you didn’t ask, and when you really want to know something another half hour is gone and they still haven’t given you a straight answer. You are on your own. You better know exactly what you want and how to make it happen. No “advisory team” is going to help you. Not unless you have a ton of money or a much bigger company takes a special interest. That’s the truth. Quit giving people State Dept. of Revenue “How to Start and Run a Business” pamplet-type of advice.
January 21st, 2008 at 7:28 pm
And if you’re naive enough to believe some SCORE volunteer can provide valuable advice, you get what you pay for – nothing. It is incredible the number of SCORE volunteers that are listed under a certain catagory, yet can’t answer a single question. Twenty years in retail, each of them, and not one SCORE volunteer could answer questions about an endcap display. Grrrr. All you will do is waste your time getting shuffled around. You’re much better off spending the time reading and studying. Don’t be lazy and think some volunteer is going to give you answers. You can’t even depend on someone answering the phone at the IRS to give you the information you need. Either hire someone who’s been there and done that, or dig your heels in and learn, assume the attitude you’re ready to do whatever it takes. Then, AFTER the business takes off, THEN you can hire people to take over some role as internal expert. It’s impossibly treacherous for someone in a small business. Don’t EVER EVER EVER tell an accountant or lawyer how much you really need their help.
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:48 am
Awesome list of resources. Thanks for putting it all together.