Cost of Heating oil; Cost of lumber?

[Charlie Self]

That shows you don't know a thing about how country stores operate. These guys will not accept contracts from any one distributor.

[Charlie Self]

Specious analogy. If you sell houses for a living, you might make the comparison and call it valid. But to say you live in a house and have to get more for it than you paid so you can pay replacement costs is not any kind of analogical situation.

You and George are a business shark's dream.

[Duane Bozarth]

And that assumes the store is in a location they have a choice of distributors willing to sell to anyone on a hit-or-miss business. That's not common here--in fact, it's quite uncommon. I suppose in more populated areas, there is enough competition to keep such an arrangement workable.

Ah, well...shows nuttin's the same where... :)

I still can understand him keeping prices at the pump in line w/ everyone else even if I would personally prefer he didn't...

[George]

Snicker.

I know that your case is the exception, rather than the rule, if true. Y'see, there's more people overall who want to sell gas than there is gas available most places. Makes the distributor pretty powerful indeed.

Of course, I can't speak for your one station, only the ones I know.

The little two-pump places are gone here. Can't afford to pay the environmental bond on the underground tanks

[George]

Tee-Hee.

[George]

I believe that "real" wages can be compared for a selected period of time to show a rise or fall. If the results don't fit the presumption of the comparing party, they will no doubt be "adjusted" with whatever will do so. I also believe that "productivity" statistics are about worthless, especially when they're dollars brought in/hour/person, instead of units of production/hour/person.

Anyone who has 21 minutes of airtime to fill each evening will fill it with whatever conspiracy theories will please the public, who hope to find absolution for their individual and collective sins in the supposed greed of everyone else.

[Charlie Self]

Yeah. Our little two pump place just installed a supplement to its six current pumps.

There appears to be no shortage of gas available here, which may be why our prices are lower than most other places. We are between two small cities, so there are numerous distributors available...and plenty of stations. But I was writing of country stores...and, IME, it has been a couple decades since any of those in this area were "two pump" stations. Gas is basically honey for the trap that draws people inside for other items, all ingeniously priced high, but not so high it is worth driving 10 miles into the nearest town.

[Duane Bozarth]

That's hardly what I'd consider "country store"...that's larger than the single largest station in town, here (except for a couple of the truckstops)...

And, one of the two fella's I mentioned earlier is the largest retailer in town w/ three stations and the business (he's 2nd generation) has been w/ the same nationally branded distributorship since in the late

40s and that distributorship has threatened to cut them off because they're not large enough volume...

[Prometheus]

Just a thought, and probably one they closed the loophole on some time ago, but is it possible to write off the price of gas paid for daily commutes on your year-end taxes? I know that if I buy a tool or tools that I must have to perform my job, I can write that off, as well as depreciation on that tool- if it's worth enough to bother calculating it. Most people don't bother, because it's nothing but nickel and dime stuff, but gasoline adds up awfully quick at these prices. You'd need to keep a milage log and gas receipts for the year, but I can't see why a vehicle that you must have to get to and from work isn't a business expense... I'd be willing to bet that just about every corporate entity does this for their fleet, why not a private citizen?

Like I said, it's probably a loophole shut tight and locked up long ago, but a guy has to wonder.

[Unquestionably Confused]

This is neither tax nor legal advice but the short answer is, I think, it depends. FWIW, I don't believe that commuting expenses for any worker were EVER deductible. Commuting for charitable purposes (volunteer work)are deductible.

If you commute from home to a fixed place of employment each day (i.e. bank, office, factory, store) your commute is treated as personal use of the vehicle is is not deductible.

OTOH, if you have a fixed place of business, as above, but your work often takes you, by car, to other locations, I believe that on those days that you just do business away from the office or begin your day in that fashion and eventually wind up at the office to, say, drop off goods picked up, replenish stock of sales samples, etc, then all the vehicle usage is deductible as business mileage.

If you work out of the house and all your business driving is to client's/customer locations, then it is my understanding the entire mileage for the day is business mileage and deductible.

Self-employed, I fall into the middle category and most of my mileage throughout the year is business related but being 5+ miles from my office I still wind up with a fair amount of commuting mileage incurred by going directly to the office most mornings and not leaving until mid-day, if then. Still, every little bit helps.

[Todd Fatheree]

IRS Code Sec. 162, pp. 2380 "Commuting expenses between a person's residence and business location within the area of the person's tax home are not deductible even if work is done during the commute".

todd

[Mark & Juanita]

... snip.

I'm with Charlie here on this one. Yes, the business is going to pay $0.05 per gallon more to replace what is currently being sold (that was purchased for a price $0.05 less than the new price), but the business is also going to sell that new product at the corresponding higher price. The only thing that raising the price on the current inventory does is increase the cash flow to accomodate the new price, but then the new priced gas (assuming price stabilizes) is now providing an additional $0.10 per gallon (you didn't think the $0.05 increase was not going to be added to the new gas as well, did you?). Acid test is if the price of wholesale goes down $0.05 per gallon, does the retailer immediately lower the price of the gas he purchased at the higher price (but had previously covered by raising prices on lower-cost gas before the new price hit), or does the retailer wait until the new, lower priced gas is delivered and paid for?

Not saying there is anything illegal about any of this, it just is irritating and does nothing to encourage faith in one's fellow humans. OTOH, if the dealers in an area have some sort of "deal" that assures nobody strays outside of certain band of prices, then *that* is illegal.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Edwin Pawlowski]

It has been a while since I had a company car but short answer, NO.

I had to declare the mileage from my home to the office or to my first stop as personal communing miles, then the rest of the time it was counted as business miles. The commuting miles actually counted as income if it was a company supplied vehicle.

[Charlie Self]

Yeah. I found this out years ago. My SIL gets a vehicle for personal use, with the proviso that it can be used to pick up company visitors at the airport and similar chores (happened about twice in a decade). He pays taxes on almost the entire value of the vehicle. Ouch.

Fortunately, I don't have to worry about commute miles on my old and small pick-up. My commute takes about 15 seconds, to the in-house office, or to the shop. Actulaly, more like 30 seconds to the shop, as it's further away.

[George]

You're normally a thinker, not a wisher, so let me try another example in hope that at least you will catch on.

Tanker drives up to deliver 10,000 gallons, on which I, as owner stand to make, say eight cents a gallon . Seven thousand later, the price jumps eight cents a gallon. Do I:

1) Forfeit all my profit, from which I expected to pay my expenses and put a chicken on the table? 2) Try to get some money back to protect my cash flow by pushing up the price on the remaining three to replacement cost? 3) Just buy less gas to sell for the same potential eight cents next time because I have less money?

You make the call.

Now, since during times of rising prices I take it in the shorts regardless of the option exercised, my hopes are for falling prices, where I may recover some of my losses in a rising market and stay in business in spite of a rather irregular cash flow. I can only do this by holding pump prices during a decline in distributor prices.

Oh yes Charlie, the logo on the truck that pulls up to fill my tanks need not match the logo on the sign. My distributor supplies gasoline to several "brand" stations, and, especially at night, is prone to topping me off with whatever truck has some fuel left in it. That way he doesn't have to take it back to the depot with him. Same distributor, different logo.

[Charlie Self]

And that has what to do with anything? Locally, distributors come out of the tank farm and supply just about everyone, and just about everyone knows it. Big surprise? Maybe for you, but it's been going on for 35-40 years, IME.

[George]

So you _knew_ that your "country market" places really were the same as everyone else with dependence on distributor and chided me about it nonetheless? Shame on you.

[Charlie Self]

I hope that sentence makes sense to you.

I didn't "chide" you for anything. If you're happy with getting screwed by business types, go for it. IMO, any business that charges replacement cost for items already in stock and paid for at a lower rate is screwing the customer. If that isn't the case, why are we so happy with those who provide stable prices--based on what they paid for what is in stock--and less happy with those who don't?

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Forfeit what? You still have 3000 gallons at 8¢ markup. You didn't buy the new high priced gas yet, that is still at the tank farm. You may be missing an opportunity to make a few extra bucks, but certainly there is no loss and the chicken will still be cooked.

Why would you buy less? Don't you have good credit? How did you buy the first tankful to open the station in the beginning? Properly financed and well run businesses do this all the time.

Let's say you are building a house and all the material is delivered at an agreed upon price. The price of lumber goes up.for the next house you will build. Do you raise the price of the existing job?

[George]

AH! That's it, bet on the future, don't mind the present. Now why didn't I think of borrowing money to take care of day to-day expenses? Come to think of it, why don't I just borrow the money and not bother with the business.