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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Murrey Walker who wrote (410763)	2/15/2011 8:30:32 AM
From: LindyBill	3 Recommendations Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 793572

I found Kate's comment about Business to be innocuous, and certainly not worthy of the explosion it caused. Frankly, I was flabbergasted by longnshort's unacceptable response to it. I could not overlook it, especially when he repeated it. He was a long time poster here, and knew better.

To: Murrey Walker who wrote (410763)	2/15/2011 10:40:19 AM
From: ManyMoose	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793572

their job was to find the "gray" areas and exploit them. I don't necessarily subscribe to that view, but nobody can blame people for having it. The tax code is so ridiculously complex it keeps accountants busy all year doing just that. Then in one fell swoop, Congress creates a health care package that takes 2400 pages just for their miserable contribution. When government agencies draft the Code of Federal Regulations for it, no bookshelf on earth will hold it. Case in point: When my agency was formed it operated by a manual called "Use Book." The Use Book was 147 pages long, not even the size of a Louis L'Amour novel. Now the manual is a huge set of binders, each of which holds close to a thousand pages. http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Publications/1905_Use_Book/use_intro.aspx A presidential proclamation in 1891, authorized the creation of the Forest Reserves in the United States. The General Land Office administered these lands until 1905, when the forest reserves were transferred to the newly created Forest Service. Gifford Pinchot, chief forester, and the "Use Book Committee" revised earlier regulations and instructions needed to guide the public and the Forest Officers in the use of the National Forest Reserves. Published in 1905 as The Use of the National Forest Reserves, it came to be known as the Use Book.. Annual editions of the Use Book were released. From its beginnings as a pocket-sized, 142-page document, the Forest Service manual has grown to encompass multiple volumes, in both print and electronic formats.

To: Murrey Walker who wrote (410763)	2/15/2011 11:23:31 AM
From: Bill	6 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793572

I've signed my own paycheck since 1974, and will (along with the other truthful business people on this thread) say that Kate's premise is basically correct! Are you saying I'm not truthful? Why would you say that? My company, among other things was able to employ my two children (and augment their college educations), hire my wife (and ensure she was eligible for her own SS income), Buy a second (lake) home (which was actually used by our employees), amongst a few items. Was it illegal to hire your children? No. Do you know many LARGE businesses legally hire children of executives and major shareholders too? And wives too? Do you know many LARGE businesses own apartments and houses for their executives? Legally. I'm trying to see how by listing normal business activities, that all LARGE businesses can use, you agree with Kate when she says small businesses get away with breaking the tax law.

To: Murrey Walker who wrote (410763)	2/15/2011 11:33:17 AM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793572

If you don't at least have a home based business you're shooting yourself in the foot imo. The entire tax system is basically designed to support small businesses. One of the main reasons I always do my own taxes first before giving them to an accountant. I learn the system each and every year over and over again....

To: Murrey Walker who wrote (410763)	2/15/2011 12:26:16 PM
From: Katelew	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793572

Smart man! I have to say that the amount of disbelief surprised me, too. I would have expected this thread to have lots of folks with self-employment/small business experience. Not that they would be tax cheats themselves, but that they would know from experience all the ins and outs available to someone who wanted to be.

To: Murrey Walker who wrote (410763)	2/15/2011 1:15:58 PM
From: Neeka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793572

There is no "guilty" in what you are doing Murrey. We do the exact same thing, and so does everyone else. (unless they're clueless and those who are go out of business for a variety of reasons...........like the ones who don't pay their taxes.......but that is another story.) Because the code is so complicated, and because it actually saves us time and money, we have used an accounting firm to file our returns since our company has been in existence. I said file our returns. We do all of the other accounting and file our own quarterlies. We have given our CPA the same instructions. We feel zero guilt.

To: Murrey Walker who wrote (410763)	2/16/2011 3:28:58 AM
From: KLP	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793572

We did the same thing with my business of 23 years, Murray. In the beginning, I did the bookkeeping....but soon, it became so time consuming to do the job correctly, that I found I was doing that rather than creating new business to come in the door. So I hired a bookkeeper, who was trained as a CPA, and worked for the IRS for some period of time. She was top notch, relatively expensive, but I never worried we were doing anything wrong. We took the books to our CPA once a year, until we grew enough that after the bookkeeper did the monthly and payroll reports and the quarterlies....then he overlooked everything once a quarter and the end of the year. One of the biggest reasons we didn't grow more, as my family wanted me to do, is that I just didn't want a big business. After you have 50 employees or more, there is just toooooooooo much paperwork, as well as much more record keeping and reporting to do. It was simply not worth it to me to even attempt to get there.