Demographics & Proforma Insight

Lower Your Electric Bill

Exactly, Sam Watts! This stuff (technology) really does exist and more importantly, it really does work! I have a friend whose company does this kind of work and it's awesome, not to mention amazing, to hear about the savings their installations are creating in our industry.

Tax Internet Purchases - Not Laundromats

Laundromats provide a necessary service to those who have no laundry facilities at home. Generally, these are the poorer families in our society. They are often struggling to make ends meet and cannot afford to pay Sales Tax on washing their clothes. At the same time, middle to upper income families who have their own laundry equipment within their home would not be charged Sales Tax when they wash their family's clothes.

Washing clothes is an activity that promotes health and well-being. It is not an optional service like washing a car is. All families must be treated equally when they perform this necessary task. Taxing only the poor makes a Sales Tax on laundromats a regressive tax and that goes against everything America stands for.

Larry Adamski

What About Transaction Costs?

Ryan,

Installing credit card readers on a few larger washers would be a relatively easy way to move toward credit card acceptance but how can an operator pay a minimum transaction cost of perhaps $1.50 or more each time a customer swipes her card on a $4.00 washer? That's a 38% fee.

It may be possible to bundle transactions together and submit them to the credit card company at the end of the business day but that leaves an operator vulnerable to acceptance of a credit card that is not valid and not finding out until long after the customer is gone.

Larry Adamski

sales tax on coin op laundry in PA

I've owned self serve car washes in PA for over 20 years and paid my share in sales tax with most other states exempting the tax. Our state wants to lower the overall sales tax, but repeal and include 75 other industries namely coin op laundry. From my prospective, sharing the burden of sales tax over more industries would help me if the state lowers the overall tax by 2%. We all have to pay our fair share one time or another. If I did not have to pay sales tax for the past 30 + years it would have been great. In our businesses, we are not able to add the tax to the purchases, we would have to take it on the chin for each dollar earned. That has been the car wash industries stance for years as it being an unfair tax. I do not see the tax for my industry ever "going" away. Eventually, I think most transactions will include some kind of sales tax in the future whether we like it or not.

Sales tax

I agree 100% on the sales tax. It forces small business owners to charge more to re coop. I own a carpet cleaning business and am forced to charge my customers 7% sales tax in Iowa. I'm not selling any product at all, just labor. I pay taxes on all of my equiptment and when I purchase chemicals, I pay sales tax on them as well. Then at the end of the year I pay income tax on top. Seems like double dipping to me from Iowa Uncle sam.

Terrance