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Buffer Money
BrotherMysterio makes a good point. There are a lof ot little "gotchas" in the business of entertainment (not just Haunted Attractions by the way). My wife and I have been in the entertainment business for a long long time, and have seen a lot of promoters walk in the door with no money in their pocket expeccting to walk out with 100% of ticket sales, only to find out there are a lot of other little fees and "taxes" that are lingering in the shadows. Best to have a contingency fund just for dealing with those little buggers.
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I am new to this whole bit. I've been in retail for soo long it's not funny. I'm a mechanic and I love welding, but in my 36 year life, my career consists 90% of retail. The bad thing... I have ZERO knowledge of the tax setups and all that. What venues I DID have, I always had help with that stuff, it always seemed easy, but doing this by myself with my brother and wife helping... ehh yeah. It's rough.
My thoughts are this. Do what BM said and stick back a rounded up figure. Throw that in a seperate account / safe and keep it there until I KNOW for sure. Although I'm sure we have to pay in Arkansas. This way, when the numbers come down and it's said "You need XXX.XX money.." I should have XXX.XX + some to help out in case it's off and I have to pay more than I should. I hear the stories of people showing the numbers and STILL end up saying that it wasn't right and they owe more.
Luckily, we live onsite now, same big building with our workshop, there's a house here too which will eventually (hopefully after this year we'll have the dough) to renovate and make it livable. All this haunt has to do is pay the rent and taxes! If it does that, we're in heaven.
We all learn. Unfortunately, this is one of the bigger lessons for a newb.
Dewayne
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California has no sale tax on event admission (currently)
