It’s been a busy month, so I’d like to fill you in on the latest developments in Washington likely to impact your business.
We recently asked you what you thought about the 2017 tax cut bill and how it affected you. The good news from the survey is that 83 percent of members ended up owing less taxes. For a majority of you, that’s because the Small Business Deduction allows pass-through filers to deduct 20% of qualified business income. NFIB fought hard to make sure the provision was included in the final Tax Cuts and Jobs Act because our members told us how important it was to them.
But now we need your help to ensure the deduction doesn’t go away. Congress needs to pass a bill to make the deduction permanent, otherwise it will expire in 2025. You can help sway your congressional representatives by telling them to do the right thing by saving the Small Business Deduction.
And, while you’re in touch with your representatives, you might want to bring up one more issue. The U.S. House is taking up another bill that would impose a big red tape burden on small business. Called the Corporate Transparency Act, H.R. 2513 would force businesses with 20 or fewer employees to turn over private information (names, birthdates, addresses, and driver’s license or passport numbers) to the feds on anyone with an ownership stake in the business.
As with the income tax, government always finds a way to make forms and regulations confusing, and there’s a real risk of getting something wrong. Such mistakes can result in fines or even imprisonment. NFIB investigated what this would do to small businesses, and we concluded compliance would waste 131.7 million hours at a cost of $5.7 billion over a decade.
Is filling out yet more forms really the best use of a business owner’s time? Of course not. And it’s worse than the paperwork burden – the House version of this bill also would impose steep fines, and under the Senate version (S. 1889, The Title Act) you could face fines up to $1 million and up to three years in prison. You can read more about this issue and contact your member of Congress to voice your concerns about this bill here.
We’ll keep you up to speed as this and other critical issues as they develop as NFIB continues to be your voice in Washington, and in the state legislatures.
Juanita D. Duggan
