Ambots bragging about Amway Tax Refunds

I had an ambot show up to leave a comment on this post:

http://marriedtoanambot.blogspot.com/2011/06/who-is-nelsen-of-infamous-wwdb-amway.html

LOL... she lost $35 000 in 11 years, that's just shy of $3200 a year... you all understand this is a product business and despite what you think about the business structure the products themselves are very rarely second to none. Even a deaf mute could sell enough product in amway to profit $3200 a year to cover those expenses, not to mention the tax return money if you even keep half assed books. I love how she fails to mention how much money she made from selling products and tax return income for running a home based business.... and if she didn't make her money back from sales volume and tax return, then I do not feel sorry for her.... she was just lazy and I know how much you all Love to hear that!

For a moment let’s try to put aside the canned Amspeak bullshit. This is typical of most comments that ambots leave on my blog.

Today’s post is about the part of this comment where the ambot mentions getting a tax return income based on running your Amway business. Seeing as how tax time is coming upon us I thought I’d revisit this whole get-a-tax-refund-if-you’re-in-Amway that is widely promoted by the Amway cult leaders.

This was the type of tax advice our Amway upline gave us that everything in Amway is a tax deduction and as this ambot clarified - they count Amway tax returns as part of an IBO income. What the upline really means is the only way an IBO can make money in Amway is to deduct Amway expenses from the income they earn in their real J.O.B and the only Amway income comes in the form of a tax refund. Our upline told us we’d get a big tax refund deducting all our Amway expenses - legitimate or not.

At Amway meetings I attended the Platinum and pretty much everyone else in the room would be bragging how things couldn’t be better and their business is growing. Then these same IBO’s claim they’re getting a large refund after filing their income taxes.

My Ambot was fascinated. He had no idea the secret to getting a tax refund - according to our upline - was to become an Amway IBO. Free money from the government!

Refund? Ha, that’s a laugh when your business is doing good.

Ambots can not grasp this concept.

If your business makes too much money (income) and you don’t have enough deductions (expenses) you owe money at tax time. Yay! Business is going great!

If you do not make much money and your expenses are higher that your income then the government issues you a refund. Boo! Business is the shits!

In other words it is pretty much impossible for an IBO to claim business is going great and they’re making lots of money and then talk out of the other side of their mouth about how they’re getting a big tax refund. Or as ambots refer to it: tax return income for running an Amway business.

Most Amway IBO’s in addition to being fake business owners work a dreaded J.O.B. and are employed by a company and receive regular paychecks. When tax time comes around those sneaky Amway bastards deduct all their Amway expenses (XS, Perfect Water, vitamins, food bars, hotels, function tickets, meals, travel, etc) against their job’s income.

That is the only way most IBO’s make money in Amway. By declaring everything they spend on Amway as a business expense and deducting it off their job’s income.

Lying little ambot bastards that they are! Tax cheaters!

Here is a big clue ambots! Unless you own a grocery store, items that you eat (groceries!) can not be deducted as business expenses in order to get a tax refund. When you’re an Amway IBO if you’re declaring travel and restaurant expenses on your taxes you better be showing some kind of Amway income profit on selling Amway products. If Uncle Sam catches up with you you’ll be up shit creek!

My husband and I run a legitimate business. We have a tax number. We have business license. We have insurance. We have accounting software where we create client invoices, and enter all monies received from clients and all monies we paid out in the course of running our business. We have legitimate business expenses that can be used as deductions. We back it all up on a CD and give it to our accountant at tax time. This is because we’re smart enough to hire the services of a professional who checks we entered everything correctly and aren’t missing information and ensures we are not leaving ourselves exposed and who also does their damnedest to make sure they write off as many expenses as they legitimately can so that we have less money to pay back to the government in what we owe in taxes.

Sure the hell beats “counselling with upline” and being told everything in Amway (XS, Perfect Water, vitamins, laundry soap, cleaning products, etc) is a legitimate business deduction!

For the record - our accountant disagreed with our Amway upline! Refused to handle anything Amway related saying “I deal with legitimate businesses not pyramid schemes.”

So much for “never question upline”!

If you are running a pretend Amway business and are taking your upline’s advice on filling out your taxes so that you can earn your money in Amway courtesy of a government tax refund check be prepared to end up in big shit in an audit.

When we were in Amway we were told if nothing else Amway is a good tax shelter. The taxman might disagree. Here is some more interesting reading:

IRS to Amway: The Party’s Over!

http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/conspiracy/amwaybush5.shtml

IRS answers for business or hobby and deductions. http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=169490,00.html

Peter Reilly’s blog post about Amway IBO’s in tax court.

http://riles52.blogspot.com/2011/06/selling-soap-as-hobby-amway-ibos-in-tax.html

Another post by Peter Reilly about taxes and Amway. This one is kind of interesting if you go to the comments. In typical ambot fashion anytime posts like this surface on the Internet the Amway rats scramble out of the sewer to battle the truth by coming out swinging with false accusations in a bizzare attempt to create distractions away from the truth about Amway. The first ambot who posts a response accuses Mr Reilly of murdering his mother!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2011/07/26/drag-racing-and-amway-fun-not-profit/

Peter Reilly’s Blog about Selling Amway Soap

As year end approaches and people start thinking about getting their paperwork and accounting in order for taxes, I’d like to point people in the direction of a couple of blogs written by one of my visitors, Peter Reilly. He’s written about the downside of being an IBO and claiming EVERYTHING related to Amway on your tax return.

Obviously brainwashed ambots will counsel with upline for their tax advice. Those upline bastards are usually full of shit and are known for giving bad advice. Too many ambots rely on making their money in Amway in the form of a tax refund from Uncle Sam by claiming their Amway expenses as deductions against their income from their regular employment. Not a good idea. Any questions regarding filing your taxes should be directed to an accountant with expertise in this area, not some upline ambot who encourages his downline to cheat on their taxes.

http://riles52.blogspot.com/2011/06/selling-soap-as-hobby-amway-ibos-in-tax.html

http://blogs.forbes.com/peterjreilly/2011/07/26/drag-racing-and-amway-fun-not-profit/

The Taxman’s Gonna Catch Some IBO’s!

Our upline gave us shitty advice about everything under the sun but perhaps the worst advice that could have had severe repercussions is that everything in Amway is a tax deduction. I figured out pretty quick that the upline meant the only way an IBO can survive in Amway is to deduct their Amway expenses from the income they earn in their real J.O.B. Our upline told us we’d get a big tax refund deducting all our Amway expenses - legitimate or not.

I’ve sat in enough Amway meetings where the Platinum or someone else in the room is claiming that things couldn’t be better, their business is growing, and then in the next sentence these same IBO’s claim they’re getting a large refund after filing their income taxes.

My Ambot was transfixed. He had no idea the secret to getting a tax refund - according to our upline - was by becoming an Amway IBO. Free money from the government! All these years our accountant balances our income and expenses to a point where hopefully we don’t owe money or as little money as possible to the government. Refund? Ha, that’s a laugh when your business is doing good.

Ambot’s not good with money (which is why we’ve had an accountant for many years) so I put it simply so he could grasp the concept.

If our business makes too much money (income) and we don’t have enough deductions (expenses) we owe money at tax time.

If we do not make much money and our expenses outweigh the income then we get a refund.

In other words it is pretty much impossible for an IBO to claim business is going great and they’re making lots of money and then tell us they’re also getting a tax refund. Uh, that would tell me business ain’t going as great as they claim. Or they’re cheating on the taxes.

They’re lying about one or the other. But then that’s what IBO’s are trained to do by their upline: LIE!

In our legitimate business we have legitimate expenses that can be used as deductions. In the pretend Amway business we better not even dare claim anything Amway related or we could end up in big shit in an audit.

When we were in Amway we were told if nothing else Amway is a good tax shelter. The taxman might disagree. I found some interesting reading here:

http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/conspiracy/amwaybush5.shtml

The couple described in the article had employment income as well as being Amway IBO’s. They had lots of Amway expenses. Deduction City! However Uncle Sam got suspicious after giving these Amway IBO’s yearly refunds. What kind of business are they running where they’re not turning a profit after all this time? Time to look into this a little futher. Oops. Caught. Time to pay back the taxman for all those refunds while “building your business”.

In this article the couple were unable to explain why they kept going to Amway functions year after year when clearly they weren’t learning how to recruit more IBO’s and sell more Amway products. The couple did not seek out a third party to ask for advice on how to increase their business. They probably just “counselled with upline” on that one! The IRS determined Amway was more like a social club for them than a legitimate business.

Its probably a good guess that other countries have similar tax laws. You can’t keep showing losses on your business and getting tax refunds. That turns the Amway social club from owning a pretend business into “how to earn money off the government” by getting tax refunds claiming Amway “business expenses”. Probably what screwed up this couple was that they also had employment income outside Amway and used their Amway purchases as deductions to offset their employment income.

Of course many people have a J.O.B. in order to fund their expensive Amway social club. Not too many people quit their J.O.B. to do Amway exclusively because they can’t afford to. Ah tax shelter. Here we come!

Yeah keep doing that. You’ll be paying that tab eventually. The Internet has stories of IBO’s getting cracked down by the taxman for submitting Amway deductions to lower their real employment income. I realize that not too many IBO’s think about getting an accountant and professional advice when it comes to filing their taxes because they trust what their upline tells them. Bad idea! Ambot and I never used any Amway expenses on our tax return. Our accountant said no because we weren’t earning money in Amway and she didn’t want to expose us to an audit.

Here’s a little hint. Unless you’re operating a restaurant business you can not use groceries as a tax deduction. Read into that Perfect Water, XS Energy drinks, Nutrilite Vitamins, food bars, etc. If you put it in your mouth and consume it that makes it a grocery item. Not deductible! Not even if you try to claim it as samples to hand out to prospective customers. You can’t hand out (or more likely self-consume) hundreds of dollars of “samples” every month and not make any sales.

Here’s my best advice at tax time. Don’t “counsel with upline” when it comes to taxes because their advice runs something along the lines of if you don’t make a profit on Amway sales you’ll make that profit in a tax refund. Unless you like getting audited, see a professional accountant for advice on what you can legitimately claim as deductions.