Sales Tax Help for Ad Agencies: Joe Dietz
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Published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on April 19, 2000. All rights
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Writing for Business: Carol Andrus
E-mail: MelindaSherwood@princetoninfo.com
In today’s information-overloaded culture, good business
etiquette means getting to the point fast, says Carol Andrus,
whose business, Write On Target (212-724-1958, CLAndrus@aol.com),
teaches executive assistants how to communicate effectively.
“Malcolm
Forbes said `I read over 10,000 business documents in a year —
you can’t make it simple enough for me,’” Andrus points out.
“We’re
inundated with information — nobody has enough time and people
want direct conversation, a real voice.”
Workplace 2000, a full day of training and celebration of professional
secretaries, will feature Andrus on Tuesday, April 25, at 9 a.m. at
the Princeton Marriott. Her seminars include “Skills We Need for
Workplace 2000,” and “Fat-Free Writing.” Rhonda
Salowitz,
the owner of Dress for Less, gives a seminar on how to “Enhance
Your Professional Image,” and Art Masotes of Amerada Hess
lectures on “Electronic File Management.” Cost: $98, including
breakfast, lunch, and materials. Call 609-586-9446 (www.mccc.edu).
Andrus started her own communication consulting company because she
was appalled at how other communication consultants were teaching
awful grammar and bad style. “One company’s workbook was full
of errors, things like `Whom should I say is calling?,’” she says.
“Since I live in New York City, and it’s the home of bad grammar,
I figure I’d create my own seminar company.”
The daughter of a German bookkeeper and a British soldier, Andrus
was exposed to many different languages while growing up. She earned
a BA in economics and German from Duke University, Class of 1957,
and after working as a secretary in New York, moved to France to study
romance languages at the Sorbonne. She later returned as a
multilingual
tour guide in 1963, and has written for publications such as the
Village
Voice and Miami Herald. Clients of Write on Target include New Jersey
Transit, Merrill Lynch, American Institute of Banking, and American
Management.
The next time you write a memo or prepare a business document, keep
these points in mind, says Andrus:
Write the way you speak. “The `enclosed please find’days are just gone,” she says. “Use words like you, I, andwe.” Don’t use the passive voice. “Why say `We had adiscussionwith John’ when you could just say `We discussed the project withJohn’?”Keep memos under one page. “Tell people in the firstfew lines of your memo what it’s about,” says Andrus, “andmake the last line your action line — tell them what youwant.”Adds Andrus: “Any paragraph that’s longer than seven lines were-read. Average business writing is on a 10th grade level.”Also emphasize important comments with bold, underlines, capitalletters,and bullet points.Delete what your reader does not need to know. “Youstill see a lot of bedtime stories written in memos,” says Andrus”For example, someone writes `Gene Gold called me yesterday fromour Denver office to tell me,’ — does your reader really need toknow that? Otherwise, it’s just `Gene Gold told me that…’ or `Wehave a big problem in our Denver Distribution Center.’”Even in E-mail, don’t ask your reader to scroll down page after page.Have a “can do” attitude. “The top blip onall the employment charts is attitude,” says Andrus. “Do youhave an `I can do it’ attitude for the new technology and all thethings in the workplace?”In most cases, secretaries will say no, and it’s time to change that,says Andrus.Whether you’re a secretary or manager, good writing skills are notonly a nice touch, they can pull you up the corporate ladder, saysAndrus. “The most sought after skills are communicationskills,”she says. “Many people realize that no one in their office canwrite, and now they’re making six figures because they started writingsupervisor’s memos, then reports. Now they’re writing for thepresidentof the company.”Top Of PageSales Tax Help for Ad Agencies: Joe DietzNobody likes to pay sales tax — especially not ayear after the fact. But advertising and public relation firms havehad to do just that on many occasions, thanks to a vague state lawthat applies taxes to some advertising services and not others.”For over 30 years, the advertising industry and the Divisionof Taxation had been hampered by a poorly written and poorlyinterpretedsales tax law that caused a great deal of difficulty in audits ofcorporations that advertise, or ad agencies and public relations firmsthat serviced these companies,” says Joe Dietz, executivevice president of Richartz, Fliss, Clark & Pope, an ad agency inDenville.”What happened to the ad agencies is that they would interpretthe services they provided their client as not subject to tax. Atsome future date, the ad agency was audited and the auditor determinedthat the ad firm had incorrectly not applied sales tax. Those firmsthen would go back to the client on bended knee and ask them to anteup, or they no longer had the account and there was no one to requestpayment from. In order to avoid that problem many ad agencies chargedsix percent on everything they did, and in that case the advertiserdefinitely suffered.”A year ago, Dietz, along with other members of the communicationsindustry, worked with the Division of Taxation to rewrite theconvolutedlaw, and as a result, the sales tax on many services offered byadvertisingand public relations firms has been dropped. “It put New Jerseyad agencies on an equal footing with their competitors in surroundingstates where no sales tax was ever charged on services,” saysDietz, “and secondly, it finally recognized ad agencies and PRfirms as professional firms such as lawyers, doctors,accountants.”To help members of the industry grasp the sales tax code under thenew law, Dietz put together the “Sales Tax Guide for Advertisingand Public Relations Professionals,” published by the AmericanAssociation of Advertising Agencies (free by calling 212-682-2500).He’s also presenting a seminar on sales tax at the Business MarketingAssociation meeting on Tuesday, April 25, at 8:30 a.m. at theKenilworthInn. Also on the program are Denise Lambert of the state taxationdepartment and Alan J. Preis, a CPA from Florham Park. Call609-409-5601. Cost: $95 (www.bma-nj.com).The former president of New Jersey’s oldest advertising firm, J.M.Kesslinger & Associates in Union, Dietz has a BA in economics fromAmherst College, Class of 1949. In 1995 he founded the Advertisingand Communications Sales Tax Coalition, an organization intended towrite a guide on existing sales tax law that would be beneficial toad agencies, public relations firms, advertisers, and even the NewJersey Division of Taxation. “Top people in the NJ Division ofTaxation were unable to agree on what was and what was not susceptibleto sales tax when I first wrote the proposition paper,” he says.”A good deal of the problem stemmed from the fact that there wasno clear definition of what comprised `advertising services,’ andthe law specifically stated that advertising services were subjectto sales tax.”In 1998 Dietz helped get an amendment to the tax law that clarifiedwhich advertising services are subject to tax. It essentially limitedthe definition of “advertising services” to the processingservices involved in direct mail advertising. Everything else wasno longer subject to tax.The ultimate effect of the amendment was to elevate ad and publicrelations firms to the level of a profession, much like lawyers anddoctors. “All of the creative work — art, design, and copy— is no longer subject to tax,” says Dietz. “Everythingan agency or design firm up to the point of delivery of a disk tothe printer is no longer subject to tax.” It also put New Jerseyad agencies on an equal footing with competitors in surrounding stateswhere no sales tax is charged.But there is still some confusion on certain points of the law,particularlywhere copyrighted artwork is involved, says Dietz. “Those createsome interesting tax situations and those are outlined in the newguide,” says Dietz. “It’s so complex many are still fuzzyas to what is and isn’t subject to tax.”Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
