primitive wants to open a restaurant

[Gern]

I want her to do this.  I want to read her posts when she complains about how the city, county, state and federal governments are involved in her business affairs and are making her life miserable, with all their taxes, licenses and fees and filing their paperwork.  I want to see how she deals with lazy employees and pissed off customers that give her bad reviews on yelp.

 

Indeed...ESPECIALLY the employees...

Have a few unskilled people working for you for a little bit and you'll change your tune about demanding a "living wage".  She'll learn that many of these people are not worth even the 8 bucks an hour you pay them, after they call in sick and/or act insubordinate, and when you fire them they run to Employment Security and file for unemployment, and you get to watch your state UI contribution skyrocket...ES almost always rules in favor of the employee--short of doing something illegal even when you get fired you can still collect.

[GOBUCKS]

"Dummy - business owner"?

You just have to get there quick.

[Dori]

Indeed...ESPECIALLY the employees...

Have a few unskilled people working for you for a little bit and you'll change your tune about demanding a "living wage".  She'll learn that many of these people are not worth even the 8 bucks an hour you pay them, after they call in sick and/or act insubordinate, and when you fire them they run to Employment Security and file for unemployment, and you get to watch your state UI contribution skyrocket...ES almost always rules in favor of the employee--short of doing something illegal even when you get fired you can still collect.

Understanding how and when you pay employees, withhold which taxes at the proper amounts, deposit employment taxes and filling out the forms, which must filed on time to avoid penalties, then having to balance all the quarter reports to the year end reports for both the federal, state, and social security agencies isn't something you learn overnight. Of course you can hire an accountant, or payroll service, but that's not cheap either.  Oh, and of course workmen's comp, and liability insurance too.

A lot of what an owner operator does is all the bloody paperwork.  My favorite is having to figure out the city's personal property taxes.  You have to pay taxes on assets and improvements that you already paid for and paid sales taxes on.

I've also wondered if in a restaurant, and your employees are allowed to have meals for free, do you have to file a form for that or add the value to the employees paycheck and pay the taxes on that?  And if you do, can you then deduct those food expenses from your gross income? 

 


 

 

[Chris_]

I've also wondered if in a restaurant, and your employees are allowed to have meals for free, do you have to file a form for that or add the value to the employees paycheck and pay the taxes on that?  And if you do, can you then deduct those food expenses from your gross income? 

I've never worked in a restaurant that gave their employees food for free... it was almost always discounted (anywhere from 10-50%), but it wasn't free.

Things might be different elsewhere.

[Dori]

I've never worked in a restaurant that gave their employees food for free... it was almost always discounted (anywhere from 10-50%), but it wasn't free.

Things might be different elsewhere.

Years ago when I waitressed, they gave us food credit that showed up on our paychecks.  We were allowed to have a meal during our dinner break.  But, I can't remember if we ate more than the credit, did they charge us for the overage or not.  We would have to fill out a meal ticket to give to the cook, so it was tracked.

[Gern]

I've also wondered if in a restaurant, and your employees are allowed to have meals for free, do you have to file a form for that or add the value to the employees paycheck and pay the taxes on that?  And if you do, can you then deduct those food expenses from your gross income?  

I don't think so.  

I once asked my accountant, I think the fourth year after I started the company "So, I had to throw a bunch of old material away in the dumpster, I get to write that off, right?"

He's like..."uh....No...you already deducted it the year you bought it, right?"

"uh...yeah"

"So you're asking me if you can deduct it twice, then?"

"umm.....I see your point!"

"s'okay" he smiled "everyone asks that question."

The IRS figures you deducted it already when you included it as a list of business expenses for that year.  Whether you sold it, donated it, gave it away, threw it away, doesn't matter.  All they look at is gross income vs. expense.  Now if it were a piece of equipment that could depreciate, that's another matter.  I get people calling us all the time for donations of material because of the type of business we're in.  

"But it's tax deductible!" they say.  "No,...it's not" I answer.  "I can't deduct it twice."

.

[I_B_Perky]

Didn't read all the posts on this thread from here. I did read the dummies posts.  I can tell that this will be a failure for one simple reason.

The word "work".  Mentioned multiple times in the dummie thread. Then we have "lots of work" and "hard work".

Work and dummies just do not mix. Running a restaurant is hard daggone work. Running your own restaurant is even harder. I give it a month before the dummie fails.

[Skul]

I'm a bit surprised that Franksolich, has dropped by to give advice on the proper cooking of hamburgers.
He's been awfully quiet. He's up to something.



Aw crap, Now I know. Where did Doug go?

[GOBUCKS]

Poor addled DUmmy grasswipe Judy offers a curious post:

Response to cilla4progress (Original post)
Fri Sep 6, 2013, 11:19 PM
grasswire (37,738 posts)

32. my family member who owned a coffee-house cafe worked like a dog
Many nights he slept in the place, on a couch. He took over this place; it was an established business and popular. But two people, a couple, had run it previously. He was only one. He baked at 4 a.m. Supervised 6 employees. Did the front and the back business. Became more and more anxious and exhausted. Two years later he had to walk away, losing his investment of sweat and money. When that downward spiral begins of being swallowed up by the work and the debt, things spin out of your control.

A horror story, yet poor addled Judy Smith was nearly swooning over her harebrained scheme to open a "non-profit" pie shop. She never did update her fellow DUmbasses on how it fell through.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x86326

We don't call them DUmmies for nothing.

[Gern]

Poor addled DUmmy grasswipe Judy offers a curious post:

A horror story, yet poor addled Judy Smith was nearly swooning over her harebrained scheme to open a "non-profit" pie shop. She never did update her fellow DUmbasses on how it fell through.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x86326

We don't call them DUmmies for nothing.

Pfhahaha!  That's priceless...


I can imagine her thinking... 

"Non Profit" = "I get free startup money" and

"I don't have to work as hard as other small businesses"

[J P Sousa]

The DUmmie needs to talk to former Senator George McGovern;

  A Politician's Dream Is a Businessman's Nightmare: A 1992 column on the realities of running a business   


But my business associates and I also lived with federal, state and local rules that were all passed with the objective of helping employees, protecting the environment, raising tax dollars for schools, protecting our customers from fire hazards, etc. While I never have doubted the worthiness of any of these goals, the concept that most often eludes legislators is: "Can we make consumers pay the higher prices for the increased operating costs that accompany public regulation and government reporting requirements with reams of red tape." It is a simple concern that is nonetheless often ignored by legislators.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203406404578070543545022704.html

Poor George found out the hard way why businesses go under, and democrats are too stupid to learn from history.   


.

[RobJohnson]

I've never worked in a restaurant that gave their employees food for free... it was almost always discounted (anywhere from 10-50%), but it wasn't free.

Things might be different elsewhere.

I was at the top of the food chain and received free meals, there was no tax penalty. It was not a 1099 issue. Other employees were given 25 or 50% off depending on position. Everyone was given free soda. Off shift discounts were 10% for most employees.

I know of other restaurants in the same chain that gave all employees one free meal per shift. The owner was just generous and did not like seeing people eating Subway or McDonalds in his restaurant. He had a few limits but he thought it was a good way for the employees to know the menu, especially when new items came out.

[obumazombie]

One of the DUmmies (probably one of our moles) rightfully mentioned restaurant failure rates. As near as I can tell the figures he was referring to were non franchise business failure rates. Non franchise restaurant failure rates are higher.