CLEVELAND — Barry Moltz tells the story in his blog of the time the Department of Revenue shutdown his company because his bookkeeper ignored warnings from them, according to Small Business Trends.
Moltz “did not know all [his] tax responsibilities” at the time, and other small business owners may not as well. He chronicled four mistakes that owners commonly make that can lead to a call from Uncle Sam.
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The first is non-payment of payroll taxes. “Each pay period, a company deducts from the employees paycheck taxes that are due to the government.” A good way to do this, he wrote, is to “use a payroll service that will withdraw the taxes and pay the government automatically.”
A business also needs to be sure to pay sales tax. “With each transaction, a company collects sales tax for the government,” he writes. “A company should ensure that these taxes get posted to a separate account so the money is there to send at the end of the month.”
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Non payment of use tax can also get you into trouble. This is a tax the company assesses on themselves, he writes, for purchases where they should have been charged state sales tax.
Health code violations are the fourth thing Moltz writes about that can get you into trouble. If there’s a violation, “Inspectors will shut that company down on the spot and lock the doors.”
The full article goes more in-depth on each one of these items to educate you on how to avoid your business from getting into trouble with the government.
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