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Keep your eye on the cigar box.

July 07, 2009

While the Tax Update takes its summer vacation, we are serializing my chapter in "How Business Gets Done: Words of Wisdom by Central Iowa Experts." You can buy your own copy at Lulu.com by clicking on the link.

Every business, from the humblest hot dog stand to the biggest swaggering conglomerate, has one thing in common: the need to end the day with more cash in the cigar box.

That's not the same as having the lowest taxes. The businesses with the lowest taxes are the ones that have folded. You can look it up. While paying taxes isn't the best thing in the world, it's preferable to business failure.

Your job is to make money. Treat taxes like any other expense: lower them as much as you can without hurting your profitability. The guy with the full cigar box wins, not the guy with the most deductions. If you end up spending your time fighting the IRS over underpaid or late-filed taxes, you won't be filling the cigar box.

Next: Just what kind of business are you running anyway?

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