RE: The Fall Of A Business—Why My Dislike Of All Government Is Personal
It's taken me a little while to get to this post. I didn't want to skim it so I waited until I had some time to sit down with a coffee.
The good times really did sound great, but I completely understand the sense of impending doom that you felt during these times. I had a similar experience last year when business was growing fast and everything was running nicely. It was a time when I felt like I could spend more time working from home and only check in on the business in person a couple of times a day. But I knew that at some point a staff member would decide to move on and then I'd be back in the gym full time again. And it happened of course. So now I'm back in the gym full time given that no staff member will run the place as well as I can.
It's a sad thing that many newspapers are simply becoming a thing of the past. I think it was inevitable really with the way technology progresses. So I wouldn't hold yourself to blame for the end of a 123 year old paper. It was certainly going to happen eventually, if anything you prolonged the papers life. Not many people would have put in the amount of effort or passion that you did.
I think our dislike of governments is quite equal. I have to pay 10% of my businesses income to the government every 3 months. Regardless of how much my business is making and how profitable it is. It's essentially destroying my business. So I have a couple of choices; I can close the doors and walk away, and send 5 staff members to the unemployment line, or I can continue to suffer losses and pay staff via increasingly creative means.
It's a shit situation, but the government doesn't care what happens to my business. Even though they keep claiming to be thankful for small business owners. It's enough to send me off grid, and I'd love to be able to do that through cryptocurrencies. And that's why I love Steemit so much. The opportunity is here. We just need to make the income stream large enough.
These two posts were fantastic @glenalbrethsen. I'm really glad you put them together. It was an excellent read and I can completely relate to your sense of grief with closing the doors. I love my business and would hate to see it fail. It would be like losing a loved one. But we must push on, there's some amazing things coming in the crypto space and we got in at a great time.
Thanks, @mazzle. I think we already knew that we understood what the other was/is going through, but I'm hoping this has cemented it. I can see that it has from what you wrote, especially the part of not ever really being able to celebrate and appreciate the good times. What goes up must come down.
Taxes is one of the reasons I dislike government the most. One of the last years we were in business I gave the two full-time employees end of the year bonuses. The amount of taxes they took out of the checks was criminal! It was just like when my partner told me he wanted out. I literally felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. I couldn't believe it. I should have just figured out a way to gift them the money without it being related to the business. Under a certain amount, they wouldn't have to pay anything.
Here, an S corp, like we were, passes through to the head officer of the corporation, so I ended up with whatever net gain on my personal tax returns. The state of Oregon only charges $100 a year regardless of income. It's one of the few things Oregon does okay with in the taxation department because then they turn around and have one of the highest income taxes in the US.
re: losing a loved one
For me, it was more like I had been robbed. Robbed by the government. I could have just turned over all my income for all the good any of that did me.
I wish you all the best man in all your business endeavors. With all of the garbage that can happen, it's still better than putting up with the machinations of being an employee, and the hoop jumping that creates. Even at some point you do go back to working for someone else, like I might do, too, it won't be because it's the best thing. It will be in it's rightful place as the last option.