Big Party Spending

Phil: Now, in about a month from now at the end of December, there's a tax break that goes away. So as it goes away, what's happening, and this is amazing to me, is you have a lot of companies that are having these huge parties at restaurants. Now the tax break has to do with the meal deduction being a hundred percent deducted, but has to be at a restaurant. It can't be food from a caterer, it can't be food, you know, that you have in your office. It can't be food that you buy at a grocery store. And as a result, I mean, people are buying, people are going crazy, wasting money. They're buying wines for, you know, a thousand dollars a bottle just to get this tax deduction. I think a lot of money is being wasted, and the excuse is basically, they wanna build relationships with their customers. So they figure if they have this lavish, you know, restaurant dinner, they're gonna build better relationships. The where this all falls apart in my, in my mind, besides the waste of money and, and probably the waste of food, is also the restaurant industry is hurting for staffing, for qualified staffing, and for, you know, more products. They still have some supply chain pro problems. So, you know, if I'm going into a restaurant and there's gonna be this lavish party, who knows if they're even gonna have enough wait staff to make it enjoyable. 

Sally: Yes. And it's interesting because this tax break was introduced in 2021 to help restaurants that were struggling because of the pandemic. And so maybe it did its job during that time, and it is a good thing that it's going to end at the end of this year. 

Phil: Yeah. And in the meantime, don't have a party and waste money just. You don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.