These are among the most important legislative issues for small business owners next year.
With the presidential campaigns in full swing and less than a year until the 2020 election, there will be plenty of policies proposed and debated in the coming year that will affect small business owners. Here are five of the top legislative issues that NFIB will be monitoring in 2020.
The Corporate Transparency Act and ILLICIT CASH Act
The Corporate Transparency Act and the ILLICIT CASH Act could have a tremendous impact on small business owners. Under these bills, small business owners would have to report to a federal database the names, dates of birth, addresses, and driver’s license or passport numbers of anyone with a 25 percent ownership stake in the business or who receives economic assets from the business for the life of the business, plus five additional years.
Not only does this grant broad access to sensitive information without a subpoena or warrant, but it would also impose $573 million and 13.2 million hours in compliance costs and burden, according to a recent NFIB Research Center study.
RELATED: Learn more about the ILLICIT CASH Act.
$15 Minimum Wage
In 2019, the Raise the Wage Act legislation, which would rapidly increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, was introduced in the U.S. House and Senate. The NFIB Research Center studied the economic effects of enacting this legislation and found that it would lead to more than $980 billion in real gross domestic product loss over 10 years and 1.6 million fewer jobs in the U.S. in 2029, with nearly 700,000 of those from businesses with fewer than 100 employees.
While the U.S. House passed the legislation in July 2019, it is unlikely that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will take up the bill. NFIB will continue to monitor the issue throughout the year.
Medicare for All
One of the biggest policy stories coming out of 2019 and into 2020 is the proposal for a single-payer healthcare system, sometimes referred to as Medicare for All, and how much the system would cost and how it would be funded.
NFIB believes that small businesses deserve health insurance that is affordable, flexible, and predictable and will continue to pursue legislative and regulatory solutions for small businesses that focus on lowering costs and increasing choices for small business owners and employees.
New Employer Mandates
In addition to Medicare for All, there are a variety of proposals for additional employer mandates, such as paid sick leave, paid family leave, and paid vacation.
The keyword with the workplace mandates is “paid,” says NFIB Government Relations Manager Jeff Brabant, who stresses that small business owners want to offer the best possible benefits to their employees but don’t have the ability to absorb huge mandated cost increases and must be able to decide what they can do with the finite budget they have.
Beyond employers, employees would also bear the brunt. For example, the FAMILY Act would be funded through a monthly 0.2 percent payroll tax paid by employees and employers.
The PRO Act
Recent legislation in Congress would reverse long-standing employment law to the detriment of small businesses.
The Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2019 includes the elimination of state right-to-work laws, codification of the National Labor Relations Board’s expanded joint-employer standard, elimination of the use of secret ballots for union representation votes, and reporting requirements that would breach confidentiality between small business owners and attorneys and infringe upon employer-employee relationships. NFIB opposes the PRO Act and will continue to monitor it.
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