Saying "Thank You" with Rebates

When he was Director General of Taxation in South Viet Nam from 1973 to 1974, refunds were far from Nguyen Huy Han's mind. He boasts that he increased revenues threefold by persuasion and strict enforcement of the laws.

But now that he is a Michigan restaurateur, he has picked up on a modish tax idea and applied it to his business. He is handing out rebates to customers. "This is my way of saying thanks," says Han, owner of Pontiac's WE or West-East Ethnic Restaurant.

When he first came to the U.S. in 1975 at the urging of a relative, Han survived on odd jobs and welfare. Last year, on his way to English lessons, Han noticed an A & W Root Beer stand for rent. The owner was so impressed with Han's determination to get into business that he gave him the place free for a year. Han took $1,000 in savings and remodeled the stand into a 40-seat restaurant.

At the end of that year, during which he and his sister kept $100 per month for themselves ("Why take more?" Han asks. "Our apartment costs only $85 a month"), he had made a $10,000 profit. Next week he will rebate all of it to his 2,000 regular customers, of whose spending he kept account, at a rate of 30%. One customer, who spent $1,000 at WE, will thus receive $300 in cash; the city of Pontiac, which had him cater two parties, will get $60.

Now that he has conquered his culinary challenges--the hardest of which, he says, was making hamburgers and french fries--Han hopes to institutionalize even higher rebates in the future with a profit-sharing plan.

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