Small Business News

A business owner in Brookville, New York, has pleaded guilty to willfully failing to collect and pay over employment taxes to the IRS.

Court documents show that Sung Soo Chon, known as Steve Chon, oversaw the daily operations of two spas and their related businesses. 63-year-old Chon was the CEO, president and majority owner of Spa Castle Queens in College Point, New York, and Spa Castle Texas, in Carrolton, Texas.

According to statements made in court, Chon directed subordinates to pay cash wages to some employees, some of whom were not legally employed to work in the United States.

Chon faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, as well as a period of supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties.

The case highlights the severity of penalties for employment tax fraud offences for small business owners. One of the major challenges small business owners face is managing money, payroll and taxes efficiently, while following the law. Being dishonest and careless about the way employment taxes are managed and filed can lead to an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This can result in charges, fines, and even imprisonment.

Subsequently, it is vital small businesses are conversant in employment and payroll laws. If they do not have the knowledge, outsourcing payroll responsibilities to specialists could be an invaluable investment to ensure this unavoidable aspect of running a business is carried out correctly and is compliant with the law.

A statement by the Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, described how the owner of two spa businesses frauded the IRS.

“From the first quarter of 2014 through the first quarter of 2017, Chon did not withhold all of the legally required federal payroll taxes from the wages of some of the spa employees and filed false employment tax returns with the IRS. During this period, Chon caused the businesses to conceal more than $1.3 million in cash wages. In total, the spa companies did not pay $199,238 in payroll taxes due to the IRS,” said the Office of Public Affairs.

The case in being investigated by the IRS-Criminal Investigation.

While this case involves severe employment and payroll tax crime, it reiterates how important it is for small businesses not to become involved in tax fraud.

There are many different types of tax fraud small business owners can become embroiled in. Without the proper guidance or advice, it is easy for a small matter to spiral into something much bigger which jeopardizes a small business’s reputation.

This case underscores the value of seeking professional advice and support in matters related to employment law, and, specifically, payroll matters.

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This article, "Spa Owner Pleads Guilty on Payroll Tax Fraud Charges" was first published on Small Business Trends

Read more: https://smallbiztrends.com/2022/06/spa-owner-pleads-guilty-on-tax-fraud-charges.html

Many entrepreneurs dream of reaching millions with their product or service, but what if your customer base is only a few thousand?

Patrick Palmer successfully runs his small business, The Computer Guy, in a town with less than 5,000 people.

Here he is with Shawn Hessinger, Executive Editor for Small Business Trends, on this latest edition of Small Biz in :15, to tell us more about how to successfully start a small business in a small town.

You can catch up to Patrick Palmer at his website if you need more information after watching this episode.

Check out the full interview with Patrick above on YouTube or listen on SoundCloud using the player at the bottom of the page.

Shawn: What is the main difference between starting a business in a small town or elsewhere like a larger urban area?

Patrick: The main advantage for me in a small town is, out of my 57 years, I’ve lived here 54. And that is, you can’t buy trust.

“Some of the same people that saw me walk across the graduation stage or knew me when I was in boy scouts or from my radio days—those people know me and trust me, he adds.

Many, many people say to me, ‘You know Patrick, the door’s open. Just go in and fix the computer and leave me the bill.’ That is a small town at its finest.

My main town, Hampton, is about 4200 people, so that’s kind of where I’m at now. I’ve used that small town niche to do other projects in other towns.

I kind of use the radio station thing, where if they can hear me in that area, that’s where I can serve. I basically do a free pick up and delivery 45 miles from Hampton.

And so that’s how I got into Mason City and Webster City, Patrick says. I was also in Waverly and a member of four different chambers of commerce for a while. That helped, too, up to a point, he added.

You have to be active and volunteer and be present. You can’t say, I’m a member and that’s all there is to it.

So, being active in our town and among the city council in our town has probably caused me a little bit of business because people get a warning saying their grass is too long—they think I sent it out.

It does have its pros and cons. But by and large, I would not want to go into a large town and start a computer repair place with the values and the morals and the whatnot that I have. I think that would be very tough.”

Shawn: Let’s say that you didn’t grow up in a small city, or say you did, what is the biggest challenge you face starting a business in a small town as opposed to a larger market?

Patrick: What I’ve done when I’ve gone to a smaller town is I just claim I’m the expert here. I plant my flag in the ground. And I’m the expert until someone says I’m not.

“So, I tend to find the pain points of the current computer repair person,

‘Oh, so they didn’t do that…

Oh, they didn’t know how to do that…

Oh, they lost all your data…awwwww!’

Finding those pain points, though, lets you build trust with them. And then, the word spreads.”

Patrick goes on to say one of the main reasons why he’s not in the Webster State Chamber anymore was because he built his business large enough not to need them anymore.

“And a couple of other factors with Webster state go into it, so that’s not the whole thing. Anyway, I was already promoting myself more than they were promoting me, he says.

There were no other computer repair techs that had brick & mortar stores, and if there were, I could still do it cheaper because I didn’t have to pay rent.

So, I come to town and have a set schedule on Fridays; I went there. And I have a set schedule—I go here and there and people just know it’s Monday or Wednesday—it’s past day in Mason City, Iowa.”

Shawn: Say I’m a business owner or entrepreneur living in a large town and want to relocate because I like small-town living—am I really going to make it in a small town with a smaller market? What do you think the advantages are?

Patrick: Depending on what the business is, I think you could. In 2020, I am on the city council too so I kind of have access to this information too, when everything was doom & gloom with Covid, we had 20 new businesses start up in our town.

“For a town of 4,000, that’s pretty big! Not only did we have a new funeral home, and a new grocery store, I mean, those are two big-ticket items, but we had new hairstylists downtown, a couple of new businesses downtown and lots of home-based businesses all around.

And so, I think it was a good chance for people to offer services in a pandemic that really was niche-filled that could work.”

Shawn: When you are researching what kind of business you might want to start in a small town, how do you go about it and what would your advice be for somebody starting out?

Patrick: I would definitely go to the chamber and find out what is needed in the town. And say I can do skill set A, B and C is there a demand in this town?

He added that talking to the mayor, or some people on the city council or at city hall might help you find out if there is a demand.

His advice is to walk up and down main street, pop into a few businesses, just introduce yourself and stick your hand out. He says that’s how he did it, adding that he is a people person.

Shawn: What kind of market considerations differ do you think in small towns? And about financing, you mentioned not having overhead, but I imagine overhead is a big deal when you have to have a business on main street when you are just starting up. What advice can you give people in those areas?

Patrick: I had a business downtime for about 3-4 years and hired an employee—and what they don’t tell you is how much that employee costs. It’s more than just the hourly rate, and I guess I wasn’t as informed about that as I should have been.

Patrick goes on to explain that you have to pay the taxes, the matching and all the other stuff that goes with it. I finally just said that’s enough, so I went back to my home-based business. I make less, but I keep more, and that’s what it’s all about too.

“As far as marketing goes, I did a lot of that when I was trying to compete with folks in other towns. For instance, he says, I used to have a van that had my name on it, and it was all lettered up.

Every town around here has a town celebration and parades. I had frisbees, and I would go there and throw them out, he says. They were just like business cards. They had my name on them, my logo, my website, whatever.

After doing 15 parades a year he explains that he had diminishing returns toward the end of it. He said I got to thinking I’d done enough parades.”

Patrick tells us that as far as marketing goes, he doesn’t spend money on it anymore. He says, people around here know me, my word of mouth is good. I’m on Facebook with my page offer. I offer tips and I do the 80/20 rule on advertising: 20% sell, 80% provide information. If any of that information helps somebody, then they call me.

Be sure to check out the rest of the video where Patrick Palmer further discusses key points, such as ways to use your successful small-town business for creating new subdivisions and predicting the up-and-coming creative niches he believes will really deliver.

Also, if you are thinking about starting a business in a small town near you after watching, be sure to let us know in the comments for How to Successfully Start a Business in a Small Town.

Listen on SoundCloud:

This article, "Patrick Palmer on How to Successfully Start a Business in a Small Town" was first published on Small Business Trends

Read more: https://smallbiztrends.com/2022/06/patrick-palmer-small-local-business-success-establishing-trust.html

Read receipts are an excellent feature for critical, time-sensitive communication. But, sometimes, you’re not in a position to send your response. And to avoid hurting senders’ feelings, you don’t want them to know that you have seen their messages. Knowing how to turn off read receipts comes in handy in such a scenario.

Here, we will discuss how to turn off read receipts for different types of online communication.

Read receipts tell that messages were opened. When you send messages with read receipts on, you can know when the recipients opened your messages. Likewise, people at the other end will also know when you opened their messages.

If you turn read receipts off, the senders will not know if you opened their messages. Also, with read receipts off, you cannot know if the recipients opened your messages. So read receipts are a kind of trade-off.

The following are ways how you can disable read receipts for different email clients:

Gmail read receipts don’t work on personal Gmail accounts. Only Gmail for work or school accounts can access this feature.

Log in to your Google Admin Console, and then go to Gmail. When you click on the User Settings menu, you will see the Email read receipts tab. Select the Do not Allow email read receipts to be sent option to turn off read receipts.

To turn read receipts on, select the Allow email read receipts to be sent to any email address option.

Go to the File menu, and tap the Options tab. A new window will open with Outlook options. Click on Mail and scroll down options. In the Tracking section, select the Never send a read receipt option.

To turn on read receipts, pick the Always send a read receipt option.

Click on the three-dot preceded by your name on the upper right side of the web application to access settings and more.

Go to the Privacy section in the Settings menu, and toggle off the Reading Receipts button.

To turn on receipts, you need to toggle on the Read Receipts button.

Here are ways to turn read receipts off for text messages:

An Apple iMessage appears in a blue text bubble. It is different than a normal text message (green text bubble). The read receipts option is available for iMessage only.

Go to the Settings menu, and click on the Messages tab. Turn off the Send read receipts toggle. And to start sending read receipts, you have to turn on the Send read receipts toggle.

This global setting affects everyone in your contact list. But you can also override it in a person-by-person conversation.

Here is how you will turn off read receipts for specific contacts:

Go to the Message settings menu, and click on general settings. Then, click on the Chat features option. You will see the Send read receipts toggle option. Turn it off to turn off read receipts.

Also, you should turn off the Show typing indicators not to let others know when you’re typing.

To turn read receipts for your Android device, turn on the Send read receipts toggle option.

The following are ways to disable read receipts for popular instant messaging apps:

There is no direct way to turn off Google chat (Hangouts) read receipts. But you can appear offline to your audience to indicate that you’re not available for chat.

Click on your profile in Hangouts, and a new window will open, set your status Away and uncheck Show when you were last active and Show which device you are on.

Telegram doesn’t have a feature for disabling read receipts. The closest thing you can do is turn off the last seen & online option so that the sender will not know when you’re using the app except for a brief period when you’re sending him/her a message in one-to-one chat or in a group of which both of you’re members.

Go to the Setting section of Telegram and click on the Privacy and Security tab. Then, tap the Last Seen & Online section and select the ‘Nobody’ option.

Click on the three-dot on the top right corner of the app to access the Settings menu. Then, click on the Privacy tab. Toggle off read receipts to disable read receipts. You should also toggle off Typing indicators so that others cannot see when you’re typing.

To enable read receipts, just toggle on the read receipts option in the Privacy section of this instant messaging app.

Go to the Settings menu of the app, and tap on the Privacy tab. Uncheck the Send ‘seen’ status option from the Privacy section. You should also uncheck the Share ‘online’ status option for better privacy.

If you want to enable read receipts in this messaging app, check the Send ‘seen’ status option.

Go to the Settings menu and tap on the Messaging tab. You will see the Read receipts option on the right side. Toggle off to disable read receipts.

If you want to send read receipts, toggle on the Read receipts option.

Here are ways to turn off social media messaging read receipts.

You cannot turn off read receipts on Instagram. However, there is a workaround.

Go to the Settings menu, then click on the Notifications tab. Tap on the Messages and Calls menu and turn off Message Requests, and Messages.

Now, the following steps will help you read Instagram messages without sending read receipts.

This way, you will not trigger read receipts. But this workaround is not 100% foolproof.

Go to the Setting menus of WhatsApp and click on the Account tab. Then, tap the Privacy menu. You will see a toggle option for read receipts. Turn off the toggle option to disable read receipts. And turn it on if you want to send read receipts.

When you turn off the read receipt, you should also choose the ‘nobody’ option in the Last Seen section so that your contacts cannot know when you were online.

You should note that you cannot turn off read receipts for WhatsApp group chats.

Facebook messenger doesn’t allow you to turn off read receipts. You can turn off the Show when you’re active option to let your Facebook friends know that you’re not available for chatting.

But if you want to read messages without triggering read receipt, the following is the way to do it:

Go to the Settings and Privacy menu, and click on the Privacy and safety tab. Choose the Direct Messages tab and uncheck the Show read receipts option to turn off read receipts.

If you want to send read receipts, check the Show read receipts option.

Go to the Settings & Privacy and tap on the Communications tab. Select the Messaging experience menu, and you will see an option for Read receipts and typing indicators. Toggle off to turn off read receipts. If you want to send read receipts for your LinkedIn messages, toggle on the Read receipts.

In this article, we have learned how to turn off and enable read receipts for leading social media and instant messaging apps.

Enabling read receipts depends on the platform in question. In most cases, you have to toggle on Send receipt button. Sometimes, you will require to check the Send receipts option to trigger read receipts.

Image: Envato Elements

This article, "How to Turn Off Read Receipts" was first published on Small Business Trends

Read more: https://smallbiztrends.com/2022/06/how-to-turn-off-read-receipts.html

Finding the best work pants for women can be a tedious task. You must think about comfort, price, durability, fit, and appropriateness to the job. For a modern woman, the work pants have to be sleek but comfortable too. Your pants of choice have to be comfortable enough to wear from 9 to 5. Fortunately, we have done our best to find you the best workwear pants for women that are durable, super comfy, sleek, and affordable. All pants in this review are under $110 so you do not have to break the bank.

Top Pick: While this review contains some of the best work pants for women, this Caterpillar pant certainly picks the top spot. Like the male version, these pants are made with innovative fabrics that make them functional and durable. It comes with a water-resistant coating and the knee pad pockets ensure you get maximum comfort whenever you have to kneel to get the job done. These black work pants for women are available in sizes 10, 12, and 14.

Caterpillar Women’s H2O Defender Pant

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Runner Up: These 98% cotton women’s work pants use the rugged flex technology that helps you to move freely through your workday.  It is also super comfortable thanks to the loose fit through the hip and thigh, polyester fleece lining, and excellent mix of cotton and spandex. It comes with a loop and utility pockets and triple-stitched main seams.

Carhartt Women’s Rugged Flex Loose Fit Canvas Work Pant

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Best Value: Dickies has been making quality work wear and apparel since 1922, and this double knee Dickies work pant doesn’t disappoint. This slim-fitting work pant is made with a 7.6-ounce stretch twill that eases movement and it’s also brushed for softness and comfort. A lot of attention obviously went into the development of this work pant. It features roomy pockets, reinforced knees, tunnel belt loops, and sturdy zippers. The stain-release and wrinkle-resistant technologies allow for easy maintenance.

Dickies Women’s Double Knee Work Pant

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Gone are the days when a work pant had to look like work. These ATG work pants for women are the perfect mix of beauty and tough. They are super comfortable and have a great fit. They are also designed to keep you dry thanks to their water-repellent and moisture-wicking properties. The gusseted crotch and stretchable canvas offer extra mobility while a reinforced kick panel and articulated knees increase durability. A high back waistband prevents gapping in the back. These pants also use Wrangler’s patented roll-up leg system which allows you to easily turn these pants into shorts when the sun starts to shine!

ATG by Wrangler Women’s Slim Fit Utility Pant

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We all know Under Armour for their game-changing sports apparel, shoes, athletic shirts, and accessories, and you should add this tactical women’s cargo work pant to that list too! Like any other good work pants, these patrol pants use a durable rip-stop fabric that stands up to the toughest treatment. The 100$ polyester material also uses wicks sweat and moisture, keeping you dry and comfortable all day long.

Under Armour Women’s Tactical Patrol Pant

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Comfort, durability, and fade-resistance are common features in many Dickies work pants for women. The Flex work pant is Dickies version of the men’s flex original 874 work pant with an extreme makeover. It’s been creatively re-engineered for the modern woman and features a slim fit and straight leg. It is also fade-resistant and uses a good mix of polyester and cotton that is super comfortable and durable. This pant is available in three different colors, but if you are looking for black work pants for women, these would certainly be a good pick.

Dickies Women’s Flex Slim Fit Work Pants

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Of course, when you see Columbia, you know what to expect. The Wallowa pants are multi-functional. They are made for work, hiking, climbing, and chilling. These pants were constructed for the busy woman that prioritizes comfort and mobility. They feature articulated knees, a partial elastic waist, two hand pockets, and two back pockets.

Columbia Women’s Wallowa Pants

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No matter where you work, finding the best work pants for women is critical. Here are a couple of factors that you need to consider when looking for the best pants:

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This article, "The Best Work Pants for Women" was first published on Small Business Trends

Read more: https://smallbiztrends.com/2022/06/best-work-pants-for-women.html