This year’s Idaho Small Business Day, held February 9, was brief and to the point for a good reason: Legislative action on bills of importance to small business was occurring as the event was being held, so small-business owners needed to be brought up to speed fast. To that end, the 30-minute, virtual Small Business Day delivered.

State Director Suzanne Budge led off with some good news: $600 million of the $1.9 billion budget surplus will go right back to taxpayers in the form of rebates and in the lowering of the state’s top tax rate to 6% from its current 6.5%, thanks to the passage of House Bill 436, which Gov. Brad Little signed into law.

She then listed two other measures of high importance to small business, their status, and their prognosis for passage.

One is House Bill 450, which would keep unemployment insurance tax rates flat for two years; the other is House Bill 444, which would extend for another year the COVID-liability protections small businesses have against unfair lawsuits.

Budge then fielded questions from attendees that included whether another run would be made at letting local governments set their own minimum-wage rates and the chance the business personal property tax could be abolished.

The February 9 gathering was not the end of the Small Business Day program. NFIB has arranged three more meetings for members with influential lawmakers, which you can learn more about and attend through Senior Grassroots Manager Stacy Jenkins at her email address here. The three other meetings are with:

• Sen. Jim Rice, chairman of the Local Government and Taxation Committee, February 14 at 10 a.m.
  
  
  
• Rep. Codi Galloway, a small-business owner and member of the Business, Education, and Local Government committees, February 16, 1:15 p.m.
  
  
  
• Rep. Steve Harris, chairman of the Revenue & Taxation Committee, February 16, 2:45 p.m.

“We hope next year to hold our Small Business Day as an in-person event,” said Budge, “but I believe we achieved what we set out to do, and with the addition of three meetings with top legislative officials, showed the value of membership in NFIB.”