Businesses With No Paid Employees Increase to 19.5 Million

[The Straight Story]

Businesses With No Paid Employees Increase to 19.5 Million

The image of a typical “mom and pop” business is getting a makeover, according to new data on these burgeoning enterprises released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Yesterday’s notion of a family-run corner store is giving way to Internet-based auctions, nail salons and even motorcycle dealerships, according to Nonemployer Statistics: 2004 .

The nation added nearly a million businesses with no paid employees between 2003 and 2004 to reach 19.5 million, a growth rate of 4.7 percent over a one-year period. Businesses without a payroll make up more than 70 percent of the nation’s 27 million-plus firms, with annual receipts over $887 billion.

The report has data on 17 million individual proprietorships and on more than 1.3 million corporations and 1.2 million partnerships. Nonemployer firms may be run by one or more individuals, can range from home-based businesses to corner stores or construction contractors and are often part-time ventures with owners operating more than one business.

Among the fastest-growing: building finishing contractors (22.5 percent), Internet service providers (18.7 percent), nail salons (14.7 percent), electronic shopping and mail-order houses -- including Internet-based consumer trade (12.7 percent), lessors of real estate (9.7 percent), formal wear and costume rental stores (8 percent) and motorcycle dealers (7.4 percent).

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/economic_census/007172.html

[FloridaPat]

1. Most of these places listed have "contractors". They pay their

own taxes - both sides of social security a big 17% - and they have no benefits. The smaller firms of 1-2 people can at least take expenses off the company income before they are paid as contractors, owners, or sub-chapter S