Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | September 16, 2019 | Worcester Business Journal 19 By Juliet Feibel To celebrate her nonprofit's 40th anniversary, Arts Worcester Executive Direc- tor Juliet Feibel is writing four business advice columns in 2019. Her first one on entrepreneurial artists appeared in the March 18 WBJ while the second about running a successful arts nonprofit ran in the June 24 edition. Right now, people are talking about Worcester's future in the arts and creative industries. While most can name a few highly visible arts organizations or projects, few have a good understanding of the big picture. Whether artists, arts audiences or arts orga- nizations are your customers or clients, here are 10 things to help you understand their world better. 20) Worcester's art scene has been around for years. Artists working here for decades get very prickly when someone tells them what great art Worcester has now. 19) It's not one art scene; it's dozens. Museums, galleries, maker-spaces, and tiny DIY operations all inhabit their own worlds. The Worcester world of artists may be the only one in which you shouldn't assume everybody knows each other. 18) Bigger is not always better. The Davis Art Gal- lery is an employee project of Davis Publications on the third floor of the Printers Building. This volunteer labor of love shows some of the highest quality, most interesting exhibitions in this city. 17) Know the difference between events about art, and those about the social activity inspired by art. Set your expectations, and you'll enjoy both. 16) Go to artist talks. These quiet, brief events are where you'll learn how and why work is made, and will bring you into meaningful conversation with the artists. That sort of exchange is rare in bigger cities. 15) You will like some artworks and dislike oth- ers. This doesn't mean you're not educated or don't understand art. You have your own taste. 14) Some artists write statements about their work people can understand. Some write state- ments no one will ever understand. In Worcester, you get both. If you're mystified by what an artist says about his or her own work, take from the statement what you can use, and see if you like the artwork on its own. 13) Prices in Worcester haven't yet caught up to quality. We advise people not to think of art as an investment, especially in the early stages of collecting. But if you're interested in buying art, now is the time. 12) Buy what you like. And then buy it again, whether it's the same artist or the same style. Congratulations! You just became a collector. 11) Worcester has little tolerance for divas. Our artists are the least pretentious and most down-to- earth people you'll ever meet in any artworld. Come out and see for yourself. For the final column in Feibel's series on the creative economy, check out the Dec. 9 edition of WBJ. K N O W H O W How the Wayfair decision affects Central Mass. 10 1: R E F E R E N C E C A L L S R eference calls – where a manager checks with a job candidate's past employer to see if details they've given in an interview are correct – can greatly clarify the hiring process. From a managerial standpoint, are you getting as much out of reference calls as you could? Can you leverage them to better? Cover areas of improvement. Delving into parts of a potential employee's performance needing improvement during a reference call can get tricky. His or her former supervisors may not be comfortable if they feel they are being asked to cover any negative territory. But, said Ariana Moon of Greenhouse, a New York talent-acquisition soware company, questions can be phrased in a way to still extract helpful information. Some examples: "Where did Sally shine? What kinds of work did she prefer to do? Tell me about a challenge you overcame together. What is something Sally was able to help you do better? Vice versa, what is something you think you were able to help her do better?" Soft skills matter, too. Speaking to Harvard Business Review, author Claudio Fernandez-Araoz suggested questions focusing on so skills, like, "What can you tell me about Mary's self-awareness and self-regulation? How motivated is she? Does she exhibit empathy? ere are no right or wrong answers," Fernandez-Araoz said. Hiring managers can learn about the kind of culture Mary's worked within and how she might fit into their organizations. Get performance information. is can be done without specifically asking about performance, Jana Tulloch of Tulloch Consulting in Canada told Forbes. A good question to ask is, "What advice would you give in terms of how to best manage this individual?" Employers should ask what keeps that employee motivated. "Employers who can best understand this from the interview stage can understand whether or not they can realistically keep the potential employee engaged," Tulloch said. 4 0 T H I NG S I know about . . . ... Worcester's creative industry BY ALAN OSMOLOWSKI Special to the Worcester Business Journal W I t's been more than 10 months since the U.S. Supreme Court's Wayfair decision, a landmark sales-and-use tax nexus case out of South Dakota with implica- tions for Central Massachusetts busi- nesses of all sizes and industries selling products or services remotely across state lines. A business located in Central Massachusetts may find it now has tax filing requirements in other states. In short, Wayfair, the popular e-com- merce home goods company, lacked a physical presence in South Dakota, but its sales and transactions satisfied the statutory threshold amounts to collect and remit South Dakota sales-and-use taxes. Prior to its decision, the Supreme Court, in 1992, said a business needed a physical presence in a state in order for the state to collect taxes from the company. So, a business with one location in Worcester shipping products to South Dakota may now be required to collect and remit South Dakota sales taxes. State legislation Presently, nearly 40 states of the 45 states imposing sales tax have enacted legislation similar to South Dakota. is rapid influx of economic nexus legislation has created a heavy struggle for Central Massachusetts businesses previously only needing to worry about collecting and remitting sales and use taxes if they had a physical presence in the state where they were conducting business. is is a real hardship, espe- cially for small and middle market Cen- tral Massachusetts companies grappling for compliance with the law. Federal legislation Several federal legislative bills have been introduced since the Wayfair deci- sion to provide exceptions, for instance, if a company's sales are less than $1 million. Under these federal bills, com- pliance with Wayfair would be mitigated or even excluded for a smaller business. At this time, however, these measures to provide some relief to small businesses are not on the books. Impact on international companies Another can of worms opened by the Wayfair decision is the impact on inter- national companies – a U.K. company selling to the U.S. through Amazon, for example. e U.K. business may not have to file U.S. income tax returns but could very well be obligated to collect numerous states' sales tax on its product or service transactions into the U.S. Much discussion is needed on how foreign companies should comply. Marketplace facilitators e Wayfair decision largely applied to a stand-alone remote seller. States have now taken the decision one step further. Aer enacting their remote seller economic nexus laws, the next wave of economic nexus laws go aer those companies facilitating a remote seller's sales using their e-commerce platform. Such marketplace facilitator laws are intended to go aer the Ama- zons of the world, requiring the facili- tator be the responsible party to charge and collect tax for all of the remote sell- ers use its online sales platform. More than a dozen states, so far, have enacted such legislation – which is anticipated to grow throughout the year. A good number of Worcester busi- nesses, seeking nexus consulting and tax liability analysis in the wake of the Wayfair decision, have contacted their tax advisors looking for guidance as they navigate these new tax collection waters. Holden resident Alan Osmolowski is a tax partner at the regional CPA firm Blum Sha- piro. He can be reached at aosmolowski@ blumshapiro.com or 508-868-1086. BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal W W

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