The XBanker
Business Financing eXpert
Government Screwing Small Business Owners, Part 1
June 25th, 2008
It must be difficult living life as a politician; you have to pretend to look out for small businesses to win elections, while screwing them through acts of commission or omission the rest of the time. I usually try to ignore politics, I have better things to do – like creating jobs and making money (imagine that). Sometimes I get a bit upset when I hear a career politician talk about all the jobs they’ve created – as if they are the ones that father innovation and birth new ventures. Most of us would be on welfare if we ran our businesses like these clowns run the country.
Business owners are routinely tooled by the government. We are easy prey. We are too busy creating value to show-up at protests. We have better things to do. Which is why politicians typically cater to the unproductive (welfarees) or unproducing (retirees & students). I typically avoid these issues, but I think it is only fair to surface items that I think may impact you. So I’ve decided to start a new series to call-out politicians and bureaucrats that vilify, target or hurt small business owners. Don’t worry, I’m not some partisan hack. I trust politicians about as far as I can throw them, regardless of party.
Yesterday, I stumbled across a story in the Wall Street Journal about a proposed new bill in the Senate that I think we all should be concerned about. The Senate is proposing a bill that will require credit card companies to report business owner credit card spending data to the IRS. Why does the IRS need to see what your business spends at Kinkos next month? They hope to use this data to nab business owners who under-report their income. They hope to confiscate an additional $9.8 Billion from small business owners with this move. The money is already earmarked to further enrich and bail out the banking industry. This seems like a good trade for a politician – they criminalize small business owners so they can line the pockets of the mortgage companies that gave them sweetheart deals on their personal mortgages.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating the under-reporting of income – but this whole thing seems creepy to me. Why should a business owner be called out separately from the average Joe? I think civil libertarians would go nuts if the IRS was pulling this on every American – especially since the objective is to increase audits of individuals, but you probably won’t hear much about this one. Business owners are easy to vilify and have few champions. Oh well, who is John Galt?
Regardless of the actions of the Senate, you need to make sure that you separate your personal life from your business as much as possible. Co-mingling expenses is a fast-track to losing your corporate veil and exposing all your personal assets to litigation. You need to build business credit that you can maintain separately and to make sure that you are making legitimate business expenses.
Feel free to drop a line to the champions of this bill and let them know how you feel about it: Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) & Charles Grassley (R., Iowa).
Sphere: Related Content
June 25th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Yeah, I can imagine the senator picking up his fixed lawnmover in my shop while overlooking over my shoulder if I correctly put his $ 25.00 payment on my income statement.
That would be fine, I do things by the book, otherwise I could get deported.
I just wonder, who will deport out of the office the ones, whose intentions are bail out the loosers banks, while taking a bribes from a people having a piece in it. That’s is obviously just a tip of the iceberg.
I can’t do much about it , beside pointing it out there, since I don’t have money left to bribe them.
I paid it out all on last year biz. taxes.Lol
I am looking forward your next article.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Yes, and this at the same time that most politicians are refusing to reveal the details of their sweetheart mortgages saying it’s irrelevant…I’m definitely making some phone calls on this one.
Great post!
August 31st, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I incorporated two years ago and I am finally in gear to get busy. I For the past five years I filed 1040’s…but this summer I decided to just put all my earnings in Corp. NR 1 so that I can file as a company next year and nothing personal. These politicians go after those that forget fuel the economy…and give free-bees and handouts to those who do nada. It’s a great article and I will share this on my facebook and myspace blog.