05/20/2025
TRANSPARENT
Tn Dept. Of Revenue Stole My Joy!
Those of you who are strong enough and intelligent enough to own your own business should be commended. It is NOT easy and you have to be a pretty special person with a ton of intelligence to really make it work.
 I am a creative person and a person who loves people and loves to bring joy. I shouldn’t have tried to turn LovelyBox Gifts into a business. But what did I know? I thought I could do it all.
Several of you have asked me if LovelyBox is still in business and my response is “No, it lost its joy”. The truth is, the joy was stolen.
This is my story.
Many of you who own your own business probably will disagree with me because your strengths are in business and my strengths are in creativity. That was my first mistake. But, I have had several business minded people confirm to me that the TN. Dept. Of Revenue does nothing to help entrepreneurs and it does nothing to support entrepreneurs. It does everything to find reasons to penalize, charge $ penalties, verbally slap you around and relentlessly deny you any type of helpful information. And whatever you do, please don’t try to make a phone call to try to talk to human because they won’t do that.  The TN. Dept. Of Revenue wrongly Estimates your monthly income and then it’s on you to correct them but not without a headache and stressful penalties. They send threatening letters and bold everything in bright yellow as though you’ve committed a serious crime. There is no heart at all with the Tennessee department of revenue.  It really put a bad taste in my mouth towards Tennessee. What I thought would be fun turned out to be an annoying headache.
I’m am a strong, happy intelligent woman with a good idea, thinking that I had a sweet little gift business but they were unwilling to work with me. Oh, I was not perfect and I did make some honest mistakes but most of it was because I had no idea what they wanted from me more than a pound of my #$$.
Truthfully, the first step I should’ve taken was to hire a bookkeeper who understood everything tax related. (Make note of that if you are thinking of starting your own business) Don’t make the same mistake I made. I am happy to say because of my accounting firm in Bellevue that I am finally closed and everything is a wrap. My accounting firm even found that the Tennessee Department of revenue was incorrect with something that they’ve been beating me up over month after month, letter after letter, threat after threat…and they were at fault. (Now, THAT brought me joy) 😊 Thankfully, my wonderful CPA fixed the problem. He listened, he read all of the threatening yellow highlighted emails from the TN Dept. Of Revenue and he defended me. He fixed the problem.
So maybe I’m too transparent but that’s how I am. I didn’t fail but I shouldn’t have tried to turn LovelyBoxGifts into a business, an LLC at that. If you are a creative person, embrace your creativity but don’t try to make a business out of it. That’s at least the best advice I can give. In business, everyone wants a piece of you. Everyone wants their money. IRS, Dept of Revenue,etc. it’s fun to make a profit but trust me, everyone wants their portion. So, making a profit was not that enjoyable.
My CPA even found mistakes that the Tennessee Department of revenue made with me that cost me money but unfortunately it’s not worth the time and money it would take to fight it. Plus, I’m not a fighter. But I do expect people to conduct business honestly. But they don’t.
You can’t win. That’s sad. That’s wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a wonderful experience and I did make money and it could have grown but I didn’t have what it takes nor did I have the strength or the grit to deal with such a stubborn relentless agency. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.
Lovely Box Gifts was a good idea and we provided a beautiful service and I’m so thankful for the hundreds of you that supported me, actually thousands. Yes, thousands. Thank you.
For your orders. But we are officially closed because….
They stole my joy.
