So a Mom and Pop shop doesn't need to make any profit to pay for their living expenses (not business) and shouldn't be allowed to have money to go on trips or vacation themselves?

Employees are able to go work to make money to spend on living costs, personal things, and vacation.

I have a friend who owns a tea shop with no employees. So she isn't allowed to make a profit? Only allowed to make enough to keep the business running? Sounds like that would be miserable. Might as well close the store and be an employee of another business.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

So a Mom and Pop shop doesn’t need to make any profit to pay for their living expenses (not business) and shouldn’t be allowed to have money to go on trips or vacation themselves?

They can pay themselves a wage, which is a business expense, and then save their wages like everyone else. The only basis for profit is the exploitation of labor and unfair exchanges in the market, hence, all profit is theft.

How do you think not-for-profits and cooperatives work? They don't have profit, but no one works for free!

Your teashop friend could just as easily pay themselves to run their shop and invest whatever is left into the shop. Profit isn't necessary.

[–] Salix@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

They can pay themselves a wage, which is a business expense, and then save their wages like everyone else.

Your teashop friend could just as easily pay themselves to run their shop and invest whatever is left into the shop. Profit isn’t necessary.

I find it confusing. How do you differentiate if that is a "wage" or "profit"? How does a person who owns a small business determine how much wage to pay themselves with? I would think most small business owners will just put enough money into the business expenses for how big they want their business to be, then take the rest for themselves.

A small business typically don't need as much money to reinvest back into the business itself unless they are looking to expand the business to something bigger. There is only so much you can spend for business expenses when you don't want to deal with expanding your business even bigger. Some people only want to own a small shop.

For example, my friend at the tea shop is happy with the size of their small shop. They already offer enough stock to locals. They don't want to expand anymore. She loves running a tea shop and talking to locals, but does not want to deal with running a big store with employees. But from what you're saying, they should keep reinvesting in the business, even though the business doesn't need more money to avoid making a profit.

I understand profit is an issue with bigger companies due to them stealing money from their employees by paying themselves much more, but I am trying to understand how profit shouldn't exist for a smaller / mom and pop / 1 person shop.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago

If she doesn't want to expand, she can just pay herself a higher wage for doing such a good job. Profit is superfluous for her - it's probably just a tax thing in her case, where she gets a better tax deal if she pays herself with profits instead of wages.

Her "profit" is literally just the money she isn't paying herself in wages. That's what all profit is, hence, profit is theft. The fact that she is sort of stealing from herself for tax reasons just highlights how unfair tax law is imo

[–] Sagifurius@lemm.ee 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

nah dude. You put as much money as possible back into the business, instead of paying it in income tax. When you're small, you basically want to make sure your net profit is 1 dollar end of fiscal year. When you're big enough, then ok, show a profit. pay your tax. Those better accountants you can now afford, they're a write off too though. I own a bar, place doesn't make any money, all the bills are paid though, pay a lot in federal and provincial sales taxes. It's a different mentality. You just get used to it being ok not to show or have much a profit, because the business pays all your bills, you're almost like an old subsistence model where you might handle lots of cash, but you never keep much because of myriad taxes and expenses, but it doesn't really matter, the heats on and there's always food in the fridge.