The Pain of a Small Business Owner (2)

Hurray, Santa Claus is coming to town again ... When? Not Christmas but this tax season!

Contrary to popular belief, the last two years' tax season had somehow turned out to be seasons to be jolly. Now another tax season is coming and Santa is coming again this tax season. No, please do not think that I became delusional because of the burdens I bore as a small business owner. I am serious and I am really not mistaking this season from Christmas.

But why is tax season a season to be jolly? Because it really is, at least for some people, because the US government once again is giving away billions of dollar again this year for working people (just like whet they did last year). Good for them, but what about us, small business owners? I guess we're not as lucky. We're never in the best interest of the government because we're probably not that important albeit we provide employments and pay more taxes than employees. Most employees do not realize that for every cents deducted by government for Medicare, FICA and social security taxes, we small business owners pay the same amount of taxes, the only difference is that we cannot claim them back in our tax return.

When the economy was good, small businesses were doing quite well. In the past few years during the real estate boom, many new small businesses sprang up like weeds in spring, but now most of them had either gone bankrupt or changed owners. I recently went back to a small Asian shopping complex in Milpitas where I used to eat lunch when I was working in Fremont, and I noticed that the whole complex had changed. The place whee I used to buy my House Special Fried Rice for lunch is no longer there, it was replaced by another Chinese Restaurant. The place where I used to eat dim sum also went out of business, and now a sit-down place. The only restaurants survived in the complex are Vung Tau 2 and Tung Kee. I guess they have made enough money in the past so they can still subsidize their current operation.

During the boom, many people envied small business owners because they thought that small business owners make easy money. Well, easy money it is for those who are successful, like the guy who started Fantasia in the Bay Area or YogurtLand in Irvine, but life was not as easy for most business owners. And now as the economy is dying, most people cut off their spending because they do not have too money to spend in the first place. Many have already maxed out in their credit card and witnessed the decline in their savings, investments and property value and they reacted drastically. These situations affected small businesses greatly, small businesses are fighting for the small remaining customers with lower prices and free perks but it still does not work very well. The increase of raw material costs last year did not help small business owners either. The increase of cost is hard to pass on to customers who are already deserting their shops. Some raised their prices modestly, while others kept their old prices while reducing the portion or the quality of their products or services. It hurts both the customers and the small business owners. Still with less revenue, many small business owners could not generate enough income to cover their fixed and overhead costs, no wonder small businesses all across the country are floundering in 18 months or so.

Many small business owners lost a lot of money even up to every single cent of their investment, if they paid with their own money. Those who received loans from the banks fared a little better because they did not lose as much (the banks did), but they were still forced to either file bankruptcy and/ close their business completely. Some were even haunted by relentless calls from debt collectors. Now, if I were to ask you guys who do not run a small business, don't you feel glad that you just work for another people? You should!

Indeed some small business owners still thriving amidst the dire situation, but many did so at the expense of other people or the government. Many small business owners cheated on their taxes (That's nothing new, isn't it?). There are few common ways small business owners cheated their taxes. The first one is cheating their income taxes, many small business owners claimed a lot lower revenue than last year, which is partially true because there is indeed a large decrease of revenue coming into their pockets, but some people even went further. They operate their business from their homes and never really report the income. The popularity of online auction and marketplace sites like E-Bay provides a great avenue for such small business owners. The second way to cheat is by cheating their sales tax revenue. Many small business owners began charging no tax to customers who pay cash because they wanted to lower their sale price, and they did not pay their sales taxes either.
The third way to cheat on taxes is by buying products and/or services which are supposed to be taxable direct from wholesalers without paying taxes by claiming to resell them. Small business owners who have a valid reseller permit often exploited this by buying things like signs and printed material directly from wholesaler. Their acts were the shadiest of all, because large wholesalers are slow too these days, so they're pretty hungry and willing to take any orders from anybody just to keep them busy. Some wholesalers even did this deliberately by selling their products direct to retail customers, while others do not bother to distinguish between true resellers and end-users. I know for a fact that a sound system company in Ontario, CA who purchased their signs and graphics from a wholesaler while claiming they're reselling them. In fact they merely want to pay less for their signs plus not having to pay sales tax.

Is it bad enough? Not yet. Many other small business owners preyed on their subcontractors, contractors and resellers. Many did not know this, but many small businesses relied on other businesses to run their operation. Many small businesses who claim to be manufacturers are merely brokers, especially if they sell their products very cheaply. Let's take a simple example of a flag and banner seller in E-Bay, many of them claimed to be the manufacturers but in reality the manufacturers is in China, they're just brokers. Did you notice that some of them have location in East Coast and yet their stocks are stored in the West Coast? Yes, that further reinforce the assertion that they're just merely brokers. They bought their flags and banners from a direct importer in California, and just have them shipped from their warehouse instead. In this tough economy, some wholesalers are starting to complain that some of their accounts do not pay their bills and now they start asking for credit card instead. Many companies which subcontracted their jobs often lost money also because their subcontractor suddenly disappeared too. Some small businesses even pay for products and services by using checks with non-sufficient funds, one example is Platinum Audio in Murieta, CA.

The worst possible action done by small business owners these days is cheating their customers. Well, customers are important for small business owners because they bring business, but some small business owners are not shy or afraid in cheating their customers. The problem is widespread in the online community, take E-Bay sellers again for example, although there are many good and reputable businesses in E-Bay, many other sellers are simply crooks who take your money and never ship the products. Many online businesses are also targeting customers by shady practices like offering free or cheap products or services while in actuality they led you to sign up for unnecessary contracts to pay a certain amount of money every month. Take freecreditreport.com or similar online sites. The worst part of this scam is that they're difficult or almost impossible to cancel. They do not provide an easy way to cancel.

Sadly, the plague is not only spreading in the online world, but also in the real brick and mortar businesses. Some brick and mortar businesses also "learned" from their online counterparts and started to sign people up for free or cheap services in which they secretly altered the contract and forced people to pay for exorbitant charges like a multi-year commitment and/or exorbitant cancellation fees. One easy example TanMan in West LA which tricked people to sign up for a cheap tanning session while actually charging them for a multi-year commitment.

Now, can anybody still say that a small business owner is having an easy life? Well, not for me... I have been tricked so many times that I almost become a paranoid. I now always ask for a down payment when I committed to a certain job, because frankly it's quite hard to get the payment these days, especially when dealing with people from Middle Eastern descents. No down payment means no job, simple. Even large companies skimped on their payments, maybe because my company is too small. They could have just told me, "Go to hell! Sue us!"

Specific about people from Middle-Eastern, let me clarify I have nothing against people from Middle Eastern descent in particular. I am sure some of them are honest people (I knew some people from Middle Eastern background when I was in SJ and they're fine people) but all Middle Eastern people I dealt with in Southern California seemed to crooks. The guy who gave me blank checks was a Lebanese, the guy who stole my money was a Iranian, and the other guy who shortchanged the payment was an Arab. Do not discriminate, but be very careful when dealing with them.

Follies

"Hear this and testify against the house of Jacob," declares the Lord, the LORD God Almighty.
"On the day I punish Israel for her sins,
I will destroy the altars of Bethel;
the horns of the altar will be cut off
and fall to the ground.
I will tear down the winter house
along with the summer house;
the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed
and the mansions will be demolished,"
declares the LORD.

(Amos 3:13-15, NIV)

I don't know why, but I often feel good when I was doing poorly and I heard that other people were also not doing very well either. It may just be my selfish ego or my fallen human nature, but I admit that it's difficult to get rid off. I remember my first math pop-quiz in High School on the first day of the class. I only got a mere 2 point (of 10 point maximum), but I did not feel as bad because more than half of the class got the same grade or less (In fact the teacher said that about one third of the class got zero). I remember the teacher told us that the quiz was just used to measure our math comprehension, because many students came from different junior high school all over the country. Frankly, I was glad not because our grades from the quiz would not be recorded in our report card, but because I was not alone and many people are doing worse than me. Well, isn't selfishness an interesting built-in human trait?

And the same applies here to the calamity befalling Israel. I don't know why, but frankly I felt that Israelites' misfortune somewhat makes a part of my heart feel happy. Please don't get me wrong, I don't want to gloat on this.... I also feel bad and sorry at the same time. Well, I know that my business is not doing OK, but I was still somewhat comforted because at least I did not experience the same thing as the Israelites in those days. Well, I know I never have a summer and winter house like those referred to in the verse, but at least that I would not feel as miserable as those owned such properties and suddenly lost them.

True, we often don't appreciate on what we have until we lose them. I bet those rich people who owned summer and winter houses would probably have never been grateful having owned such majestic properties until they day they lost them. I saw an online commentary about rich people who lost their money in the stock market crash 2008 and early 2009. Truly, at first I was not a bit sympathetic to them because even though they may have lost millions or billions of dollars, they still have many millions or billions left. But as I tried to picture myself in their positions, I began to realize that losing millions of dollars (which may only be 20%-40% of their net worth) could really mean a great deal for those rich people.

I am afraid that those rich people really feel that by losing those amount of money, they can no longer afford their lavish parties or expensive accessories, and it may have affected them greatly. For a second, just imagine yourself being a rich and spoiled millionaire who used to throw binge parties daily but now is forced to do it twice a week. It feels bad, isn't it? Some leechers who used to hang around us will start sneering over our decision and start leaving our parties and choosing other people's instead. It hurts, doesn't it? Well, it does... in a foolish way.

Sadly, that's who we are, foolish people who often chose to live in our folly and rejected the wisdom from God. Too bad we often realized our mistakes only after we were almost drown in the ditches. It sounds more like the regret of a small kid who were caught stealing red-handedly, but that's how we chose to live our lives and it will not change... not until we found ourselves in a deep trouble because of it, and then we cried out... Lord, lord, have mercy on me!

True, God does have endless mercy and compassion if we truly humble ourselves and seek his forgiveness, but sometimes we may found ourselves in a bind when we didn't have time to do so... Just think of Ananias and Sapphira story in Acts, I still believe that God would have forgiven them if they confessed and sought his mercy, but they never did because of their foolish belief, and we all know how their lives ended up....

O Lord, please forgive our foolish acts, guard our heart from doing such follies.

The Life of a Confused Seminarian (1)

My life as a seminarian was a very interesting life. My first quarter went quite well because it was my first quarter and I was totally excited for it. I had two great profs who are quite nice and very understanding. However, I also found it hard to blend into the crowd. Everyone was nice when we meet in the class and during the mandated discussions because everyone was also seemed distant when it comes to their personal lives. No one really opened up to one another, it was as if they put a high wall in front of them. I began to question myself: Is this really the life that I wanted?

Despite my doubts, my first few quarters went by pretty fast because I did not have too much time to worry about it. I have to go back and forth to my Quiznos in SD. And the gravity of my Quiznos problems also forced me to push the seminary issues away as secondary or issues of lesser importance. But then, one day I decided that I have had enough with Quiznos and I sold it... From then on, I started to spend more times in class and tried to build genuine relationship with some friends but no luck at all. Some Korean friends were nice enough, but they were mostly sent by their churches and they have a large language barrier to overcome. There were not that many students who has other full time jobs. Even if they have full time jobs, they either worked for Christian organizations or churches. Having been attending Indonesian churches in America for a while, I was quite surprised by the number of full time positions their churches have (Indonesian churches usually only have one full time staff, the pastor himself). And I started to think that Indonesian churches in America are either too stingy because they do not want to spend their money to hire full times or too blessed because they have a large group of volunteer laymen and laywomen.

After few months, I finally met one person who worked full time outside churches sphere, his name was Mike. He repeatedly mentioned about the busy-ness of his works at his office, and later I found out that he was actually the boss of the company. He was pretty nice during class discussions but he seemed so distant outside the class. I once met him inside the Talbot lounge before evening class started, I sat by him and started to ask some questions. To my surprise, he was very cold. Well, he did answer me nicely, but his words and gestures seemed to send me a message, "Go away! Go away! I am busy," or something like that. Maybe he had to concentrate on his upcoming class but I still found it as odd. Do I really go to a seminary? Is the love shown by people here are merely camouflage? or is it a mere illusion?