Libertas Paper Company - YouTube

- Excuse me, what are you doing?

- We're selling lemonade, do you wanna buy a cup?

- We're raising money for summer camps.

- Yeah.

- But this is a sidewalk outside of a private business.

Do you have a permit to be here?

- What's a permit?

- Ah, I bet you don't have a license,

a business license either.

- Business license?

- And I'm guessing you're not

collecting sales taxes, unemployment taxes.

You guys better get outta here before I call the cops.

(boy panting)

(paper ripping)

I own the soda vending machine here in the office building.

I can't have those kids cutting in my profits.

Good ol' American protectionism

is working really well for me.

And besides, I taught those kids

an important lesson in business.

(upbeat music)

Good morning everyone.

Just as a reminder,

I'm gonna be out of the office after today

for my annual beekeepers convention.

- Connor, I'm not sure that's such a good idea.

We just got this important letter

from the county assessor's office.

- What does it say?

- The state tax commission

will be conducting an audit of your company this week

for tangible personal property tax compliance.

- What, let me see that.

Tangible personal property tax, what the heck is that?

That sounds made up.

This must be a prank.

Amandah, are you trying to pull something on us again?

- Me, no, I promise I have nothing to do with this.

- On the contrary, the tangible personal property tax

has existed for hundreds of years.

In fact, it used to be more than just an extra business tax.

Every homestead had to pay the tax every year

on equipment, livestock, the mortgage.

- Michael, stop right there.

I already have a headache.

How come I haven't ever heard about this before?

- The fact is, I give Connor filled-out tax forms

every single year to file with the county assessor.

But he just takes 'em and makes paper airplanes.

- (sighs) It's all falling apart.

And I was gonna have the honorary honey bath this year.

- What did you say?

- Oh, forget it.

Property tax, so it's an annual tax

on business supplies and equipment.

It says an item of taxable, tangible personal property,

blah, means equipment, machinery, furniture,

or other tangible personal property

that is functioning at its highest and best use,

blah blah blah,

for the purpose it was designed and constructed.

- Personal property is valued using a classification system.

Schedules identify various types of personal property

and provide a percent good of acquisition cost

for commercial personal property.

- This is making my brain hurt.

- Supplies are to be valued and assessed at total cost,

including all office supplies, shipping supplies,

maintenance supplies, replacement parts,

and lubricating substances.

- Whoa, this tax just got weird.

- Oh, look here Connor.

Tangible personal property is exempt

if the property has a total aggregate fair market value

of $15,000 or less.

- Wait, what, really?

There's no way all this crap we have

is worth more than $15,000.

(scoffs) I wouldn't pay anywhere near that

to buy our company.

Sweet! - Woo!

- Okay, I think the best way we go about doing this

is every department handles the things in your area,

make an account of that,

add it into the Google spreadsheet that I've created,

and then-- - No, hey, everyone, everyone,

ignore what she's saying.

We don't need to do any of that anymore, okay?

- What are you talking about, Connor?

- We don't have more than $15,000 worth of stuff.

We can just claim an exemption.

- I don't know about that.

My vocal cords alone are worth a lot more than $15,000.

- Connor, I think you'd be surprised just how easy it is

for a business to accumulate more than $15,000

in personal property.

- (chuckling) Heh, okay, Boomer.

- Connor, just because you think we have less

than $15,000 worth of personal property

doesn't change the fact that we have to account

for each item of property.

- What? (groans)

Whatever!

- I think the accounting department needs to make sure

we're complying with this audit correctly.

- No, no, no, this is too important for that.

I'm gonna be in charge.

- Connor, you're only going to screw things up

and make things a lot worse than they have to be.

- Yeah, okay, whatever.

I'm gonna be in charge, and that's final!

- Most people don't realize

that this tax affects small businesses

and small-goods businesses.

What, you think because my name is James that I'm an idiot?

- They never taught me about

tangible personal property taxes

when I took accounting at BYU.

- Hey Michael, are you heading up counting all the paper?

- No, why would I do that?

- For the tangible personal property tax.

We gotta count up all the paper.

- So you're saying I should count up

each individual piece of paper?

- Well yeah, we print on individual pieces of paper,

not by the ream.

We gotta know how much there is.

You wanna do it right, don't you?

- Well of course I wanna do it right.

- Guess you got work to do.

(paper slams)

- Personally, I don't mind taxes.

It determines who's rich, who's poor,

who's dumb, and who's smart.

Because if you pay taxes, you're dumb.

(tickets shuffling)

- I've been thinking about starting a medical cannabis farm

in my desk drawer.

You can learn more about it at SchanzFarms.pot.

(drawer bangs open)

(tickets shuffling)

- I've been locked in this room,

shipping Tuttle Twins books every day

for the past 10 months.

(tickets shuffling)

- [Man] Josh, have you finished

counting up those staplers yet?

- I was told we didn't have to do that until next week,

and, I still haven't received my paycheck yet.

- [Woman] Cut, Josh, wrong office!

- That's my stapler.

(tickets shuffling)

- I've gotta transfer to another office.

- So here is our tangible personal property tax filing.

Wait 'til the auditor gets a load of this.

Hey there, Mister Auditor.

I don't think you're gonna find anything wrong

in our tax filing.

- What's this?

- It's our tangible personal property tax filing.

Everything's in order.

- You know you killed a tree, don't you?

We've got an online filing system.

It's a whole lot more convenient these days.

- (sighing) Dang it.

Well?

- You know you tracked a whole lot of items

that just don't matter.

Anything that's not critical to your business

that costs less than $150 is exempt.

- (sighs) Really?

- In fact, for a business your size,

you'd probably only pay about $100 a year

in business personal property taxes.

- Why can't I just write a check for $100 to the government

and be done with all this nonsense?

- Hey, it looks like you did a ton of work this year.

Don't forget to file next.

- Gosh dang it. (groans)

(sighs) Good work everyone.

- Can't complain about another day wasted

not doing actual work.

- Talk about insane.

I don't think I've seen anything like this

in my entire experience.

But if they think this is bad,

just wait 'til the sales tax audit, next month.

- Today's just another testament

to my hardworking, can-do attitude.

I'd rather overpay and overwork to comply with taxes.

Besides, what's a person gonna do

with all that extra money anyway?

Hire a new employee, buy a copier,

invest in expanding your business?

Not me.

(upbeat horn music)

- 5,700,933,

5,700,934,

5,700,935.