April 2009 Archives

Vermont’s form for submitting taxes withheld has enough boxes on the “Vermont Income Tax Withheld” line for an employer to withhold $999,999,999,999.99 per quarter.

Yes, that’s one cent shy of $1 trillion in state taxes. Vermont’s overall personal income tax collections for 2008 totaled $622 million and change ($83,042 in change, but who’s counting?), a quarter of which would be $155.5 million. So, I suppose that if Vermont has one exceptionally large employer, accounting for two thirds of all salaries in Vermont, one could actually use all those boxes.

It really makes my contribution seem rather measly, though. It’ll take some growth before I’ll be contributing $100,000,000+ in state income tax on a quarterly basis, even assuming I discriminate based on geographical origin and hire all future employees from Vermont.

(“Some growth” = using loose assumptions, and ignoring scaling issues, my customer base would need to include roughly one missionary for every ten people on the planet. Give or take.)

Back when I was looking for office space, I gained a keen interest in loading docks. One evening, I actually drove around town looking for any building with a loading dock, to see what kinds of businesses had them, where they were located in the building, and how much the truck driver would be swearing in order to try and get the trailer to fit (i.e. what kind of driveway was involved, and whether the truck had to block traffic on busy roads in order to back in). There are all sorts, and I still go out of my way to look around when I come across a new building.

The space I ended up leasing doesn’t have a loading dock, alas (it had everything else on my list, unlike other places I was considering), but at least it’s easy for trucks to get in and out (they can back in without needing to block traffic, and it’s a straight shot).

Now, I’m in the process of improving how I handle credit cards. So, once again, I’m getting geeky with my research, this time looking intently at other sites’ checkout forms, paying for and downloading a 63-page usability report on checkout design (I’m very curious how well that site’s checkout lines up with its design recommendations), and so on.

Eventually, I figure I won’t be able to look at anything remotely commercial without evaluating its pluses and minuses in terms of usability, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.