Let me make you feel better, Thou.
I feel GREAT thank you 
I do go to pot lucks, scout spaghetti dinners, and K of C pancake breakfasts. I also buy stuff from bake sales. They are the only way my family can afford to dine out with any regularity.
I understand this is my little quark. I do attend the K of C pancake breakfasts (because they are cooked in our parish kitchen that has been passed by the food inspector, we can also see in as they cook!
Such an activity as twk wants to enter is no more than epicurial baby-sitting. Just as there is baby-sitting and there is a daycare center, so there is “cooking from home for money” and the restaurant trade.
I guess I would also have a problem with using a baby sitter, in their home that is not certified. Even a baby sitter that comes to my home I require that they have completed CPR certification and the baby sitting classes at our local teen center. Guess there are some things that I am too picky about.
The amount of money she makes will probably not be enough to count on an IRS return. There is a threshold that the IRS mandates before such money needs to be reported. If, praise God, twk is so successful, it would behoove her to immediately incorporate or become a LLC. At that time, she will be responsible for paying income tax on a quarterly basis. Right now, her little sole proprietorship will probably show up on her IRS return as a deficit, because she is allowed to claim her direct expenses.
**Most states require that you pay taxes on any amount of money that you make. I would encourage her to look into this. The penalties that would come if she does not pay taxes that she should have could send her family into a HUGE financial mess. Hopefully no one would do it, although there is a chance that someone at her husbands job does not like the idea of her selling stuff there and would turn her in for a audit of her business. I personally would never do it. It is something that ANYONE looking at starting a business needs to look into! I also believe it is REDICULIOUS when a child’s lemonade stand gets “busted”, it happens though, we usually see at least 1 story every summer on the national news about it. The reason it happens is because someone turns them in. I don’t think it is right, but sometimes it is not our choice on how the laws are enforced. **
There is nothing wrong in my opnion with people starting a business. That is who the rest of us eventually get jobs, from people who need people to work. It is known as Free Enterprise, and it is the basis of the United States.
As a business owner I AGREE 100%!!! Although, I would advise ANYONE looking to start a business to check into the laws and abide by them!!! I also used to be a probation officer also, I saw first hand from a small handful of my clients, that they did get in legal and financial problems for not paying taxes on their businesses, even the small home ones. I have seen them lose everything they have because the penalties attached to not paying. Not only the financial, but having to go to Court and then being placed on probation. It was HORRIBLE for them. I would NEVER want that for anyone, when it is SOOOO easy to call your SBA and find out the rules and follow them. We pay our State taxes at the end of each month, it takes all of 10 minutes to figure them out.
Each local area controls its own standards for cleanliness and what constitutes a business, vice what constitutes a cottage industry, vice what constitutes a way to make a little cash. If she lived in Chicago, I know they would want twk to get a vendor’s license (which doesn’t require much except an annual fee and paperwork). Out here in the burbs, nope, not necessary.
It will probably be a 15 minute phone call to find out what is required in her State, City, & County. A call very much worth making!
The sanitation of a household kitchen and the sanitation of a full-blown industrial kitchen are two different things. I will admit that nobody has ever been hurt by watching the movie about food borne illness.
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twk