4Thought Blog

Tax reform changed the rules on business meals and entertainment.

Here’s a reminder of what McDonald’s Owner/Operators should know about the current tax laws regarding employee meals, business meals and entertainment expenses and how best to track them.

Hardworking employees are to be treasured and valued for the contributions they make to your restaurants, but unfortunately as any experienced restaurant owner knows, not every employee is earnest.

Employee fraud is regrettably commonplace in many businesses. Near our office in St. Petersburg, Fla., there was a recent case involving a Dunkin’ doughnut shop manager who created a fake or “ghost” employee and collected and cashed their paychecks.

Ghost employees are a real problem for many businesses with a lot of employee turnover, like McDonald’s and other quick-service restaurants. It’s among the most common types of payroll fraud, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Through the second quarter of 2019, the restaurant industry continued to demonstrate solid performance, weathering shifting dining habits, increasing labor costs and continually fluctuating commodity prices. Same-store sales rose a healthy 1.8% across the industry, thanks in part to strong consumer spending in restaurants.

But savvy restaurants didn’t rely solely on strong consumer spending – they continued to implement strategies which demonstrated a positive impact in 2018 and early 2019. Whether through limited time offers (LTOs), a strengthened digital presence, in-house delivery capabilities or menu price increases, restaurants are recognizing that a tailored approach to drawing in customers is the key to withstanding industry challenges.

The largest tax change in a generation was made almost two years ago, but it’s still big news for small businesses. In fact, final regulations are still being written. As we prepare to head into fall, this is a good time to think strategically about your tax situation.

This article will highlight a couple of key business tax changes for McDonald’s franchisees, specifically depreciation changes and something new called the qualified business income deduction.

Despite evolving customer expectations, continued pressure on profit margins and fierce competition, the restaurant industry fared well through the first quarter of 2019, with same-store sales up an overall 1.5%. To preserve profitability and reclaim foot traffic, many industry players are recognizing that a departure from business-as-usual is the key to continued success.

But, given the maturity of the restaurant sector, what does this departure from business as usual entail? For some, it means making enhancements to their digital presence, rolling out delivery capabilities, or introducing promotions and loyalty programs to drive same-store sales and offset increasing labor costs.

Great news! Important tax guidance was released in late December 2018 that is considered to be a significant victory for the restaurant industry: Employee Shift Meals Remain 100-percent deductible for tax purposes.

Hiring young people can be beneficial for all parties. But before McDonald's franchisees make any job offers, you should be fully aware of how youth employment is regulated under the Fair Labor Standards Act. When employers fail to comply with these obligations, they can be prosecuted by the Department of Labor. And if the prosecution is successful, the DOL will likely publicize the results as a sobering reminder to all employers of the FLSA requirements.

A sixteenth century English romance writer named George Pettie once quipped, “So long as I know it not, it hurteth mee not.” In other words, what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

While the merits of this sentiment may be debatable, one version of the opposite certainly is not: What you do know can help you. Especially when it comes to your McDonald’s business: Financially speaking, what you know or can learn from past performance – both recent and over time – will help you make better decisions in the future.

Regular analysis of certain metrics is how you can make your business more profitable, avoid making poor decisions (again), and separate yourself from the ever more crowded marketplace. One such financial metric that is often overlooked yet unquestionably important for you to analyze and understand is contribution margin.

Restaurant owners who invested in interior improvements in 2018 may be surprised when they receive their 2018 tax returns and see higher than expected tax liabilities. This is a result of an inadvertent drafting error in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) relating to the depreciation of restaurant improvements.

Before the TCJA, the tax law provided rules for multiple categories of restaurant property assets, many of which were eligible for favorable tax depreciation benefits. To simplify the rules, tax reform consolidated the categories applicable to interior improvements into the single category of Qualified Improvement Property (QIP).

Today (and since 2004) salaried employees who earn at least $455 per week aren't eligible for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act, if their job duties are executive, administrative or professional (EAP) in nature. That's true no matter how many hours these employees work in a week. 

Under proposed regulations, the limit would rise to $679 in 2020. So, salaried employees earning up to around $35,308 annually would be overtime-eligible even if they fall into those EAP job roles as defined by the Department of Labor (DOL). 

Although the jump in the threshold is substantial, it's not nearly as high as the $913 weekly pay threshold set in an earlier version of the proposed regulations. If that version — which was blocked by a federal judge — had passed, it would've been much more costly to employers.