Business Expense: Hooters

DrivingInertia.com is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Prolonged Insult, LLC, my web-publishing-and-consulting company (formerly my failed user-generated literature site). Prolonged Insult, LLC is incorporated in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes and is itself owned by Avast Assets Corp, a 501(c) non-profit organization that aims to make the world more internety. Avast Assets Corp is a registered corporation in Belize because of its fixed dollar conversion rate (2:1 = easy, sleazy accounting).

Prolonged Insult, LLC earns money through advertising on sites like DrivingInertia.com and SarahPalinWillFixEverything.com and through consulting on sites like Dappered.com and FullClutch.com. So it has income. And when I say “it,” I mean me. These corporate entities are me … except when it comes to taxation and liability.

Because there is income, there are business expenses. Anything related to the creation of advertisable content on DrivingInertia.com or needed to creatively consult and manage the technology behind my client’s sites is, theoretically, a legitimate business expense. It takes money to make money, duh. When we write about tacos, those tortilla-wrapped bundles of delicious become a business expense. Yum.

Prolonged Insult, LLC, however, has not felt like a real business. There are no real meetings, no regular conference calls, no corporate policies. And it was missing a business expense of note — we’d never been to Hooters to charge a meal to the company. Luckily, when passing through Las Vegas, the Hooters Hotel and Casino was the cheapest place for miles — just $22 a night plus the $11 resort fee. They gave us coupons for free drinks and free wings. We cashed those in, got a little more food, another round of drinks, and I’m writing about it here to make it a legitimate business expense. Ah, capitalism.

I should start an investment fund. I can promise you 20% returns … on the statements I’ll mail to you. Just don’t try and withdraw any of your funds.