I shudder to even entertain the thought that the above is true, since you seem
unable to tell the difference between a deduction of income versus a tax
credit, and still insist that a deduction is some sort of subsidy.
According you your twisted logic, I'm saddled with your existence, since you
get to take a "standard" deduction from your adjusted gross income.
I'm somewhat encouraged that the above indicates that all of your money
managment is in the past.

Maybe you should've actually gone to the classes and taken better notes.

Ah, and the drivel starts anew.
The income deduction for all loan interest except qualifying home mortgage
interest was phased out around two decades ago.  You can no longer deduct
personal loan interest, credit card interest, or the interest from a car loan
from your income. So you don't get a deduction for interest paid for just any
old debt encumberance.
You don't get a deduction for buying a home.  The only deduction you get is
the interest paid that year for the mortgage interest.
You also get to take a deduction for other taxes paid, such as property taxes
(BTW that's where most schools get most of their money, the Feds are damned
stingy with educational support, but someone with enough business savvy to be
deemed worthy of managing a multimillion dollars in global sales would know
that).
You don't get anything for siring children.  You get special treatment now (I
never qualified, I made too much for the earned income credit, and either
myself or my wife kept the kids out of day care so we couldn't take dependent
child care tax credits for either one) for RAISING children (meaning you give
them the majority of what it takes to support them).  None of your bastard
children that you don't give any support to can be claimed as a deduction.
You'll only be able to prove your subsidizing someone else is when you can
show the zero sum.  The mechanic paid the Snap-on representative $1000.00 for
tools.  Who got your tax subsidy money, and how did he get it?

And since I (I really haven't deducted tools from my personal income, but
let's say I did) paid the Snap-on  representative $1000.00 for the tools,
where is the check for your share of the subsidy?  With those tools, I'm now
able to charge for using them.  Now I can pay taxes on income.  Without the
tools, the IRS would get less, or worse, nothing.  Now where's the money going
to come from to send your kids to school, to pay for a whole bunch of other
things.  (Did you really manage millions of dollars, who managed the taxes at
your business?)

And since I sent my kids to private school, I should've been able to deduct it
from my income, after all it was a couple that you didn't have pay the
schooling for.  Unfortunately for me, such a deduction wasn't allowed when my
children were school aged.  I still had to pay property taxes, and sales
taxes, and my property tax rate is partially tied to the upcoming budget as
approved by the public school board.  I'm in Florida, we don't have a state
tax on personal income.

This isn't covered by tax code directly, but let's just try to make a case
that'll apply.
Let's say you get to pay a $1000.00 repair bill.
If it was a true scam, and he collected $1000.00 for $0.00 cost, then he'd
have to pay taxes on $1000.00.  So by your TL, he's an outstanding taxpayer,
sending your kids to school blah, blah.
For the IRS to get involved, means that our perpetrator would have to risk
"cheating the IRS", by telling them that he didn't collect $1000.00.  While
income tax evasion isn't as "tough" as it was when it put Al Capone away, it's
still considered a serious Federal felony.

Perhaps this is just tranferrence.  You're really angry that you cannot deduct
auto repairs from your personal income, hence you must be subsidizing those in
the business because the business can deduct certain costs of operations from
its reported income.
Now, if you want a flat-tax supporter, I'll be in your corner, but do come up
with a decent rate that'll pay down the debt, cover the budget, and at the
very least, simplify things.  Good luck trying to get that past all the
accountants in Congress though.

We do send scam artists and frauds  to prison when we can prove a case against
them.  Just look at some from the current batch that have managed multimillion
dollar global sales operations, such as Worldcom and Enron executives.  Seems
they had the same economics and business accounting courses as you did.

I work on a research farm.. my 'title' is Mechanic II, but my job
description includes working on facilities and roads. While most of my
time is spent turning wrenches on farm equipment, I've also done
computer support, plumbing and electrical. Today is Sunday.. I've been
at the farm since 8am and left around 1:30pm. Got called in at 9pm last
night; stayed till 11pm.

One of our well pumps had issues.. it's a three phase unit powered by
a rotary converter.. for there is only single phase utility power
available at this point. The starter for the rotary converter went bad
and held the pump running.. I was told that water system pressure hit
120psi. Normal is 60-80psi. Lines started popping. Last night I
determined that the rotary converter starter was bad.. this morning was
rewiring the circuit to allow manual control of the pump to allow
someone to run the pump to water the animals. We still have to find a
leak; we are going from 2/3 full tank to 1/2 full tank of water in less
than 5 minutes, and this is a 3000 gallon tank. The area that this
water system serves is several dozen acres... with more than a mile of
piping.

The computer work is mostly virus removal and system setup.. though
there is talk of stringing fiber in between the buildings. I've
informed that work group that I do have a couple of OTDRs, as well as
some other fiber equipment. No fusion splicer.. yet.

Sure, the plumber might get a messy job once in a while.. so does the
mechanic. 'Puter support is probably the cleanest of the ones
mentioned. For me at least, plumbing is also the least technical of the
three.. so why are mechanics so undervalued?..

Perhaps there is a market for a limited service garage. No tranny
rebuilds or engine swaps, just basic stuff like the lighter socket or
perhaps brake shoes and mufflers...

Oh, wait, I think that already exists. As I recall, they do have cheaper
hourly rates, and you get what you pay for.

One note though to a previous post though - since disposal fees are
generally added as line items on the bill, they can't be used as part of
the overhead to justify the hourly rate. Not saying that there isn't
adequate justification for those rates anyway since the overhead for any
business is quite high.

As far as the overhead that justifies the $80/hr rates when the mechanic
is getting $25/hr, I can think of:

Rent or mortgage / taxes.
Workers comp insurance.
Unemployment insurance.
General commercial liability insurance.
Probably additional insurance riders for auto work since a bad brake or
steering job could kill someone.
Heat / air conditioning.
Electricity.
Maintenance on fixed items like big honkin' compressors, welders, tire
machines, brake lathes, lifts, tube benders, etc.
The cost of replacing or upgrading those compressors, welders, tire
machines, brake lathes, lifts, tube benders, etc.
Janitorial services.
Uniform and industrial laundry services.
Industrial gasses, i.e. oxygen and acetylene - possibly line items.
Welding consumables - possibly line items.
Building maintenance overhead such as paint, rest room, parking lot,
landscape, light bulbs, signage, etc.
Coffee and perhaps bottled water for the break room and waiting area.
Advertising.
Employee training / certification.

I'm sure I missed a few as well. I'm not in the auto business, nor do I
even run a business, but I do understand that there is a lot of overhead
in items you'd never even realize until you actually think about it.

Where I have a problem with auto service establishments is not with the
prices since I understand the justification for them and know enough
technically to not worry about bogus stuff being added to the service.
What gets me hoppin' mad is how frequently they make promises they don't
even try to keep.

One example was when I had my truck in for brakes all around and rear
axle seals (Chev. K3500 DRW). This was a well defined job so there were
no surprises to be had when they pulled things apart.

I was going to be out of town for the day so up front they knew that I
was going to drop the truck off late the night before so they'd have it
there for the moment the mechanic arrived at 7am. I told them that I'd
be back to pick it up at 4pm and they promised that they would have no
problem having it ready for then. I also gave them my pager and cell
numbers in case they ran into a problem.

I dropped the truck off around 10pm and headed out of town. When I got
back into town at about 3:30pm after a tiring 2 hr drive I called them
and found that they had not even started on the truck. I was down there
minutes later to take my truck, rip them some new bodily orifices and
take the truck elsewhere for service, never to return.

Just my 2 or 3 cents...

Pete C.

Funny thing, that...
Amassing a large amount of money holds no real interest for me.

As long as I've got enough to stay fed, clothed, and housed, and maybe a
few "toys" on the side, I'm happy. The idea of being "filthy rich"
leaves me going "but why? No matter how much I've got (or don't have)
the reality is that sooner or later, I'm going to die, and that's the
end of that. So why should I struggle to pile up a shitload of those
stupid slips of paper, rather than enjoying life the way I want to while
I'm still breathing?"

I guess that makes me some kind of freak...

OK, I'll bite: how would _you_ go about evaluating the competence of
repair shops?  Wait for the newspaper to rate one highly because they
were paid to?