I need some advice if anyone knows someone or has gone through a situation as such. Many of you do not know me I tend to just creep around on the forums but I am in the Army National Guard as well as owning a pressure washing business. I believe I will be getting deployed late 2019 or early 2020 and I am trying to figure out if I should stop business and start again after or if there is some sort of way for me to take care of legal issues such as taxes as part of some sort of delayed thing with the government and still have business going. I am not quite sure if this is even in the right thread but I’d appreciate any and all input. Thanks in advance!
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The link below talks about a tax deferral for active duty on page 12. Even if you can defer taxes what about everything else? Taxes are only a small part of it. If you want to keep your business up and running I think I’d try and train someone you can trust to run your day to day operations and hire an accountant to take care of taxes and payroll. If you can even find someone you can trust enough I’d definitely pay them accordingly.
I appreciate it! You’ve been a big help!
If you can’t find someone to run/work the business while deployed. When you put the business on hold while you are deployed you won’t owe any taxes (no income) so just take care of your last quarterly tax bill prior to deployment, file your annual for that year and call it good. I am not an accountant but when I did consulting for several years as a side job I had quarters where I made nothing but had huge payouts are the end of the year. I also had intermittent years with no income. I just didn’t file.
How do you use the deployment to your advantage is the question. If it were me and no one was going to run it for me. I would use all my social media and other advertising, customer mailing lists etc. and let them know when and why you will be gone (careful with the actual dates and location, OPSEC you know). Then every so often I would send or post something about how the deployment is going, the impact on family life etc. then finally I would let them know when I will be back to pick the business back up. In fact I would do that about 6 mo prior to coming home and remind them a few times. They’ll hold work for when you get back.
Why do all this? Less than 1% of the population has served in the military, maybe 2% knows someone that actually serves or served. Your doing this will do several things for your business and the community. You will teach them about the sacrifices you and your family make and it won’t be someone they will never meet on TV, they know you. It will make it more personal and they will benefit from the exposure. I believe it will also make your business explode when you get back because people are going to share what you are doing etc.they will be lining up to help you get reestablished when you get home. My .02 or maybe .10. Best of luck and do talk to your accountant but with no business income you won’t owe any money except for the last quarter you work prior to leaving and then the annual for the year. Another thought is your NG income will be added to whatever you make in the PW business so make sure you talk to the accountant about that since the combination could bump you into a higher tax bracket for your annual taxes and you could end up owing more than you paid quarterly for the year. Sorry this is so long but I’ve done it. If you want to discuss shoot me a PM.
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I think what Mark recommended is genius marketing strategy and would likely do so much more for your business long term versus having someone run it for a year. That’s saying a lot since you’ll be closed up for a year. He’s a retired Marine so he’s been around the block, knows his stuff, and gives solid advice you can trust.
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Thanks I greatly appreciate the advice, and is appreciate you giving me some good ideas!
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I’d find a subcontractor with a ton of great reviews, call them, let them know what’s going on, and see if they were willing to kick back 15% of jobs.
If so, I’d hire a call answering service and create a script that lets them know a different company is coming to do the work and why. I’d hire a virtual assistant who would handle all estimates, invoices, and follow up calls.
Sub goes and does the estimate, reports back. VIrtual Assistant types it up and sends it. Sub goes and does the job. You pay the sub as soon as the jobs done. Virtual assistant collects payments.
I’d leave my dad and my cpa with a power of attorney to deal with anything else.
Those are just my first thoughts if I were in the situation. More to come. Lol
And he’s generally a nice guy. Which is rare. Marines are mostly jerks who mail you eye liner. 
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True…but in three years I’ve learned most people …99% do not care if you are or were in the military when it comes to hiring someone. We may not like it but that’s the cold hard truth.
This whole support veteran owned business is just a PR stunt with no real actionable results. I use to be very heavy with the veteran owned, our first year we even donated 5% from each job to a veteran charity and let the customer pick which one. I learned really quick that customers don’t care.
You’ll have better success with building your business on a particular business niche then promoting your prior or current military, Leo, or fire career as your main selling point.
Long rant… my point is 99% of ppl could give a crap less
Best of luck to you on your deployment , if u do go message me or email me info@patriotspowerwashing.com
I’ll mail you all the nicotine, energy drinks, and nudie magazines you want.
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If your an 11 Bravo I’ll send ya a care package every month. (;
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That’s not my experience. I don’t make an issue of it but I have 4-5 customers a month that tell me they called me because my business is veteran owned. I do live in the Republic of Texas though so that may have something to do with it. I really think this is a case of turning a negative into a positive though. By telling his story it will hopefully help some of those that don’t care into people that do care. It’s different when it’s people you know even if it’s only a casual relationship.
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God bless Texas
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We only send eyeliner to squid’s. They look so cute after 6 months at sea… I hated being on ship until they dropped us off in some (*^^hole and we spent weeks in the jungle sweating our keister’s off, then two weeks later we were getting hypothermia in sleeting snow in Korea. Then getting back on ship was not so bad. LOL
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I’m a 13F, and I’ll definetely take you up on that offer
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Uh… If I had a $1 for every time I’ve heard someone say we were pricier, but they wanted to support a vet owned business I’d have like… $25.
Lol. The construction company we did some work for paid us $10k because they needed a couple vet owned businesses for their own PR. PR or not… it works down here.
We get at least 2 navy vets every month who call us because of our name and then find out I was Navy. I’ve never not done business with one of them.
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You keep forgetting I was never really “at sea”. 
You probably have more sea time than I do. I have maybe 90 days over 5 years.
Dang, I have 775 days in Afghanistan. Every unit I went to came down on orders like a week after I arrived lol
True, I guess in my experience it’s not a big factor
