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An Uncomfortable Question, But I Have to Ask it.....Techs are Paid, "Off the Books?"


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  • Joe Marconi changed the title to An Uncomfortable Question, But I Have to Ask it.....Techs are Paid, "Off the Books?"

All that can so is come back and bite you hard. If that guy was to ever need to collect workmans comp for an injury, guess who he tosses under the bus trying to get his full money.  I gave cash bonus money for Christmas but all paychecks and hours worked was by the book, and checks. issued.

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One of my guys when I owned a body shop did side work for cash doing roofing for a friend of his. I get a call on a Saturday from him in the hospital, he fell off the roof. Wanted to have me tell the workmans comp and insurance that he was working for me in the shop and tripped and fell. He broke bones in his neck, and was going to be out of work for a while. Are you kidding? No way, working for cash has drawbacks and this is just one of them. Some folks can get away with under the table, but when it crashes, it can hurt in more ways than one. 

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I never felt it was worth it. I did not want to lose all I have built over some tax cheating. There was a fellow one town over from me that started at the exact same time I did. The last I heard he was shut down and kicked out and owed the IRS over 60k in 941 taxes. I am still going strong.

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On 9/21/2023 at 9:57 AM, Transmission Repair said:

Also, don't forget about Social Security.  People who get paid "under the table" are unknowingly clipping themselves out of a lot of S.S. pay later in life.  Earlier in my career, I worked for a family who would pay us by check but insisted we cash the paychecks with them.  They had a safe in their back office full of cash.

They also had a construction company in Chicago that I now suspect took in a lot of cash, but who knows?  Now that I'm collecting S.S., I've come to realize they weren't reporting my income on the 941.  Thanks to those clowns, I'm now collecting much less S.S. than I should be because they weren't reporting my income.

I came to learn that not reporting all income comes back to haunt a person much later in their life.

Not to mention if they want to get a bank loan or a credit card or anything that might depend on their "income." Sure, it might feel nice to have that "extra cash," but anyone who wants to or is willing to work "under the table, " or "off the books" is really cheating themselves, including shop owners who skim the cash payments and only report what has a paper trial, ie checks and credit card receipts. I mean, cash payments aren't that big of a piece of the pie, are they? So, what's the big deal if I take the cash from quick jobs, it's not hurting anyone is it? (For the record, all italics are meant SARCASTICALLY and I am in no way advocating it.)

 

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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

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      I recently spoke with a friend of mine who owns a large general repair shop in the Midwest. His father founded the business in 1975. He was telling me that although he’s busy, he’s also very frustrated. When I probed him more about his frustrations, he said that it’s hard to find qualified technicians. My friend employs four technicians and is looking to hire two more. I then asked him, “How long does a technician last working for you.” He looked puzzled and replied, “I never really thought about that, but I can tell that except for one tech, most technicians don’t last working for me longer than a few years.”
      Judging from personal experience as a shop owner and from what I know about the auto repair industry, I can tell you that other than a few exceptions, the turnover rate for technicians in our industry is too high. This makes me think, do we have a technician shortage or a retention problem? Have we done the best we can over the decades to provide great pay plans, benefits packages, great work environments, and the right culture to ensure that the techs we have stay with us?
      Finding and hiring qualified automotive technicians is not a new phenomenon. This problem has been around for as long as I can remember. While we do need to attract people to our industry and provide the necessary training and mentorship, we also need to focus on retention. Having a revolving door and needing to hire techs every few years or so costs your company money. Big money! And that revolving door may be a sign of an even bigger issue: poor leadership, and poor employee management skills.
      Here’s one more thing to consider, for the most part, technicians don’t leave one job to start a new career, they leave one shop as a technician to become a technician at another shop. The reasons why they leave can be debated, but there is one fact that we cannot deny, people don’t quit the company they work for, they usually leave because of the boss or manager they work for.
      Put yourselves in the shoes of your employees. Do you have a workplace that communicates, “We appreciate you and want you to stay!”
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