This is the reality of a real small business

By Daniel Becker

This is a bit of an interlude in my writing regarding the income tax of yore. Though, this does involve taxation. This is also a continuation in my postings regarding real world small business experiences. Yes, you are going to get to read about a real situation that involves a real small business and tax policy.
Before I mislead anyone, the taxes of concern are not about income taxation. Your business has to actually have an income for that tax to matter and if you have employees using software as pay stub is better to manage the payments. I’m not talking personal income. I’m not talking capital gains taxes. Darn few honest to goodness small businesses ever have to worry about that in their daily activities. Maybe in the end you will have some capital gains after you pay yourself back all the personal money you put into your small business. I’m not talking payroll taxes cuts.
Yeah, on what was a $100,000 payroll you gain maybe a couple thousand dollars, but on what was a ½ million business that is now 55% of what it was with payroll adjusted to match, it means little. I mean, that business is sure going to be hiring new people with that. It is also possible to start a business in a new area and to have a postal address in that area, by using a virtual office service. So, for example if you are in Cardiff, you could choose this top-quality virtual office service for Cardiff as you would then get that Cardiff postal address and the virtual office service would forward all of that mail to you.
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Oh, just in case you think I’m off the mark, consider this poll from 11/10. In the poll, 90% hired what was needed or fewer than needed. The catch: Only 1% hired because of the a new tax break. 41% were to replace an employee. When asked why they hired fewer than needed: 79% worried that sales or revenue would not justify more employees. However, 13% did hire because business was better. The lucky ones. So go ahead, keep giving me tax cuts, blah, blah, blah and all that monetary relief because that US Chamber of Commerce sure represents my thoughts and desires. NOT! Idiots!
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Some perspective on small business.

“In 2009,there were 27.5 million businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy estimates.The lastest available Census data show that there were 6.0 million firms with employees in 2007 and 21.4 million without employees in 2008. “

I know it is soothing to croon over the days when the Dodge Brothers, Ford, Colt, Walton and Gates were small and became major examples for their time of the American Dream of economic power. But really, the truth is most small business were and are people earning a living on their own vs working for Microsoft (the definition of part time abuse) or Walmart or GM, or GE or Boeing… They were huge numbers of small local retail. All gone. Small local banks? Going. Small local agriculture (RI used to have a state fair), forget about it.  Look around.
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So lets get to the heart of it. First a bright spot. The flower shop had it’s first month this year that was better than last year. August. No, I’m not assuming this is a trend and here is why.

According to this Professional Employer Organization the city of Woonsocket has lost it’s Walmart to the town of North Smithfield, it’s neighbor. Major tax hit to the city. N. Smithfield got the Walmart because it decided that building a 650K sq ft shopping development would offset their rising taxes. I mean really, when in the last 30 years have we seen big business pay enough in taxes such that they actually were paying for their presence? Cut, cut, cut has been their chant. So, I can expect my property and inventory taxes to rise unless something replaces that Walmart. Say the state stepping up. Which tends to happen via the state giving less to the towns like North Smithfield.
I wrote about this type of tax chasing in one of my first posts.

“You know what is missing in this discussion (a discussion happening in every town USA)? The question: Compared to what? What are we basing the above statements on? Is it simply that we have less money after the bills are paid? Well, from 1955 to 1998, GDP rose by a factor of 20. Tax burden as a percent of income rose by a factor of 26.7. But income for a family of 4, 2 people working (sound familiar) only rose by a factor of 11.5. From 1976 to 2001 the top 1 % share of income went from 8.6 % to 21%. Yes, we have less money at the end of the day. Unfortunately, not benefiting from the national wealth as we had in 1955 (when the tax burden was 18% of your pay and would be today if all was equal) is a national policy issue.”

This is the issue of small business. See, we are all just trying to earn an income. Just like the person who works for the multinational. The income is much less because business sales are down. So, how should I plan for the pending tax rise? Do not just give me an answer that involves further big business moving into the area, because as I showed in the post on property taxes and development, it’s not so simple as welcoming Mr and Mrs. big business into the neighborhood. You need to invest in your employees’ inclusion training programs for them to be more aware of workplace diversity issues, go to https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/employee/diversity-training/ to learn more. Furthermore, businesses like medical clinics and spas may increase their team’s productivity by using innovative EMR Software solutions.

“But, for my purposes Smithfield (an abutting town) presented the most interesting data. They had a new retail development go in, but ½ the size of that proposed for my town. It’s citizens have seen since 1999 in sequence a 9.8, 4, re-val, 5.5 and 8.7 percent rise in the tax rate. It’s commercial development has been only 10% industrial. My town only had a 6.4% total rise in the same time span.”

Oh save me great god of the mega corporations from the evils of local taxation. Yeah, I didn’t think praying would work.
Next up involves a CVS move. CVS is headquartered in Woonsocket. It obviously has some new hot shot who has a better way. They are looking to own their stores and not lease. They are consolidating 2 stores into one bigger store on new property. Yes, about ½ the property was zoned commercial, the other ½ was residential (real houses on it) turned commercial. This is important, because the CVS consolidation will leave 2 existing commercial spaces empty. We’ll add them to the Walmart space and potentially the Lowe’s space as it is suppose to be moving to the new North Smithfield development which is built on what was 126 acres of woods.
Sticking with Woonsocket, the location of my flower shop, the city has managed to add to its commercial property stock while turning a good portion of it into none productive commercial property stock. How soon do you think those empty places will fill up? Don’t hold your breath.
Furthermore, business owners who are looking to open a shop should pay attention to the shop front design, which reflects what the building represent. They may hire shopfront design services to provide Traditional Wooden Shopfronts.
Some more good news. I managed to cut a major expense for the shop just this June to the tune of $379/month. We were in a unique position in that they kind of needed us. It’s not going to happen again. $4548 per year. Nice. It’s the heating expense for a year assuming the speculators don’t get active again. Yep, get rid of those government regulations as they sure are doing me harm. NOT!
The plaza that one of the CVS stores is moving out of is a customer of ours. We do seasonal decorating for them. It is about $3900/yr. Well, we’re not decorating with mums this fall and Christmas looks to be out too. How much you wanna bet spring next year and for some years to come is out? Gonna bet enough to do Washington a favor and higher someone?
Are you seeing where all this is going? I saved us some big coin. I’m loosing the same amount. Now, this is not the first hit from a CVS decision. Some other person there decided to make it simple for them to pay for their flower needs by going with Pro Flowers instead of feeding the 4 local florists which they had done for decades. They think they are getting a 20% discount from Pro Flowers. Little
do they understand the flower business. Not the first time mega corps thought they new more than the little guy. It represented about 2.4% of our business at the time. May not sound like a lot, but when you consider the extra business generated by CVS using one’s shop to send flowers, it becomes significant.
Let’s add a third issue. Refi. Time to take advantage of the low rates. The purpose is to improve, that is reduce your monthly cash outlays. But as any real small businesses owner learns, there is no such thing as a fixed rate. We have paid off 22.2% of the loan that combined the original purchase of the business and property with the rehab that needed to be done in 2004. We have about 36% of the tax appraised value in equity of the property. Business owners are advised to hire payroll management experts to help them streamline their payroll processes.
Here’s the concern, do you take a 20 yr loan with a rate of between 5 to 5.5% to be reset in 5 years or do you take 6 to 6.5% to be reset in 10 yrs? Do I bet that in 5 years business is better because the economy is better which could also mean all that projected inflation do to the Fed monetary policy and at least protect my self for 10 yrs? Or do I bet that nothing will be much better and try to preserve my cash flow (in a small business it’s always about cash flow, accrual be damn) and go for the 5% figuring the Fed money flood won’t roost for at least another 5 yrs? Oh, the refi cost are going to run you about $4000. There goes that big saving from my hard nosed negotiations again.
Your facing tax increases beyond the usual but, not because the public employees are paid too much. Your running out of area’s to cut. Major corporation moves are working against you just as off shoring is working against the middle class, the very class of your concern as you are in it and draw your income from it. And all the policy talk being pushed has little to do with the issues that you are facing because the number one issue you are facing is a lack of a middle class.
Have you heard of the “hourglass strategy”? Look it up. Ah, no it’s not a strategy you can use, but is one that will work against you.