Probably the worst this year!
In February, I posted regarding renewals of our Premise Licenses in Tennessee . Tennessee requires a bi-annual inspection of our operation to insure that we are in compliance with various regulations regarding. Included in this silliness are requirements that we:
- Possess a microscope and centrifuge. We do not offer, nor are we required to offer, any services that would make use of these instruments. Nonetheless, we were required to bear the expense of purchasing these items which do nothing but collect dust.
- Display all of the OSHA, workers comp, minimum wage and other such posters where our employees can see them. What this has to do with veterinary medicine is beyond me.
- Have Materials Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for all of the products we have. My absolute favorite of these is the MSDS for Water! Yes, you read that correctly. We use Sterile Water and therefore have to have the MSDS for this highly hazardous stuff (personally, I think it should be banned for the safety of "The Children").
I waited (not so patiently) for the Veterinary Board to contact me with the date of my inspection. There are some odd things about our situation. First of all, I live in Arizona. In order to be present for the inspections, I would have to travel to Tennessee. The more notice I have, the better the airfare. Also, we only operate our clinics on weekend but, of course, the inspectors only work on weekdays. As such, I will have to go into the Petco stores and set up just as if we were running a clinic so the inspector can see all of our wares and the environment in which we conduct our clinics.
Our licenses were due to expire on April 30th. Around the 15th, I started to nag the Board – I was concerned that the government granted permission we needed to operate would expire before the government official performed their duty. The people at the Board told me that if we were not inspected by April 30th, we could continue to operate without penalty because the inspectors were all backed up.
As it turns out, I was called by the inspector on April 21st and told that my inspection would be April 28th. No negotiating of schedules – just a pronouncement of when I would be there. Great – buying airplane ticket with less than a weeks notice. $700 – ouch!
On the appointed day, I am at the first Petco location early to get everything all set up (including the useless microscope and centrifuge). The inspector showed up and basically gave everything a cursory glance. She did not check the expiration dates of any of our drugs or vaccines (something I think is very important) but she did make sure we had our microscope and centrifuge! All in all, she spent about 20 minutes.
She then did a great courtesy which saved us both a great deal of time and effort and made the day go quickly. I will not divulge the details in an open forum since it would no doubt get us both in trouble with The Board, but suffice it to say that she figured out a way to eliminate needless repetition.
Time wasted on this incident: 3 days (travel and inspection)
Money wasted on this incident: $1,334.85 (travel is not cheap!)
Modified Business Tax
Every quarter, Nevada requires us to file a Modified Business Tax return. The tax is based on total payroll paid to our Nevada employees. Being that we only have a few part time employees in Nevada, the tax is never very much, but the form is complex. To properly complete it, I must break down the quarterly payroll by state so I can separate out only Nevada.
Time wasted on this incident: 30 minutes
Money wasted on this incident: $16.93 (tax plus postage)
Extensions
This is the day of the year I loath the most!
My tax situation is so complex, it is impossible for my CPA to have the returns completed by April 15th. I have to go to their office today, none the less, to sign extensions for: Arizona, Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia. I also had to file an extension for the corporate return for Tennessee. Of course, checks had to be attached as well.
In addition, I had to pay my “estimated” Federal Tax payment for the first quarter of 2008.
Time wasted on this incident: 3 hours
Money wasted on this incident: $2,800.00