Don’t Worry! Nothing has Changed.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

SmallBiz Trends asks “Have We Lost a Generation of Small Business Owners?” and then answers its own question with some raw figures and a chart, on the grounds that if you can’t understand “We’re down more than 1.1 million” you’ll understand “{insert chart here}”.

They claim to be talking about “fewer self-employed Americans” but closer inspection reveals they really want to talk about “fewer incorporated self-employed people”.

There’s a world of difference.

As a man of the world I am painfully aware of the number of small businesses, one-man-shows, who charge cash for fixing everything from roofs to driveways, fingernails to toe-nails, and will walk your dog, or your granny, for a wad of twenty-dollar banknotes.

I don’t think there are less self-employed; I think that there are more self-employed .

And I think they are coming from the old-fashioned regular-salary crowd, tired of paying taxes, and from the newly-retired-at-55 crowd, who aren’t satisfied with their pensions.

And me?

My accountant told me twenty years ago – if you get paid in cash, go straight to the ATM, deposit it, and write the client’s name on the slip. Once you get home, print out an invoice and mail it.

That way, he said, you will never fear the police, tax inspectors, or anyone else.

He was right, as usual.

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