JBD

Chief: How well I remember the "Air Ranger". Your PB&J story is one I've heard before from now-successful but formerly struggling entrepreneurs - baloney sandwiches, top ramen,  hot dogs & spaghetti-Os.  Now they taste like failure.

If the "spendulous" bill passes, and the market and economy further tanks as a result, I expect a tax revolution like Prop 13, pegging government spending to a base year and limiting growth to a max percentage, and even then only if the GNP goes up sufficiently.

In the meantime, what we can do now to minimize tax exposure for owners and employees? How can we operate small & medium businesses at as close to zero profit as possible? This will starve the tax system, and force cuts in spending. 

I know you think about this all the time anyway, but how would you change things if your goal was to pay zero taxes as either an owner or an employee? And at the same time not end up like Gene Haas.

Yes, owners would get no profits or dividends, but they are the ones getting boned on taxes anyway. Why not just hold where they are for 2-3 years and pay no taxes?

So besides cutting non-essential spending to save cash, what can we do to compensate employees and keep the business going but not pay any taxes?

• To avoid payroll taxes, buy essentials directly for employees and owners, sales tax paid, to both drive down profits, and reduce their taxable income - grocery coupons, prepaid debit cards, etc.
  
• Reduce margins to lower prices and gain market share, both to limit profit and to kill competition in expectation of an upturn in the future.
  
• Barter - MTS provides tools to the sheet metal shop to cover labor on the weldments bought by AutoCrib

How much of this can we get away with? What penalties are we risking? What other avenues are there? How crazy and idea is this?

Another question: For the life of me don't know why the Democrats can't see this golden opportunity to steal a Republican idea. With nobody making any capital gains this year, and probably none for years to come, there will be scant revenue from the capital gains taxes. So why don't they go ahead and make the cap gains rate zero?

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