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Member Op-Ed: Trump’s First Order of Business: Save Small Business

Member Op-Ed: Trump’s First Order of Business: Save Small Business

January 17, 2025

NFIB Member and Small Business Owner Laurie Sprouse urges President Trump and Congress to make the Small Business Deduction permanent.

In an op-ed, NFIB Member and Small Business Owner Laurie Sprouse urges President Donald Trump and lawmakers in Congress to make the Small Business Deduction permanent, writing, “nothing is more important for our economy.”

Sprouse continues, noting how the Small Business Deduction allowed her to hire more workers, boost bonuses, and expand their employer-provided benefits.

“But it’s not just job growth. The tax cut enabled us to increase the size of the bonuses we give our team every year. For the first time, we began offering a 401K retirement plan, a defined benefit plan and a profit-sharing plan, available to all our regular employees. We’ve also added other new benefits. For instance, after two of our workers had babies within months of each other, we set up a nursery in the office and hired a full-time nanny to provide childcare. The 2017 tax cut helps to fund this happy benefit at no cost to our employees.”

 

Read the full op-ed below. CLICK HERE to learn more about the Small Business Deduction.

Trump’s First Order of Business: Save Small Business

By: Laurie Sprouse

Everyone’s wondering what Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress will do when they take office in January. As a Texas small business owner, I know exactly what they should do. Their top priority should be to right one of the great wrongs of the 2017 tax-cut law and make small business tax relief permanent. Nothing is more important for our economy.

Small businesses like mine depend on the centerpiece of the 2017 law. Known as the Small Business Deduction, this policy saves us from paying taxes on 20% of our business income. This tax cut was necessary because Main Street job creators have always been at a disadvantage compared to Wall Street. Big businesses only pay a 21% corporate tax rate, and without the Small Business Deduction, my company would be paying well over 30%. That’s the road to ruin, leaving us less competitive and forced to make some truly hard choices.

But those hard choices are looming anyway because the Small Business Deduction is set to expire next year. It’s fundamentally unjust and frankly, it’s unbelievable. Why did Congress give Main Street temporary relief, while giving Wall Street a permanent break? If for no other reason than equal treatment, the Small Business Deduction needs to be made permanent, too.

Economically, this is a no-brainer. The result will be a renewed era of job creation, wage growth, opportunity, and optimism. I know this because my small business shows how necessary this tax cut is. While many people have described the 2017 law as a giveaway to the rich, the Small Business Deduction is nothing of the kind. Just the opposite: It lets small businesses give more to our employees and communities.

We’ve been in business for 31 years, and in all that time, my business partner and I can safely say that the Small Business Deduction is the most helpful policy yet. Before it passed, we had 17 full-time employees, and while we wanted to expand, we simply didn’t have the cash. Then we got our tax cut.

Those 20% savings enabled us to start hiring more people, and within two years, we had 20 full-time employees. That may not seem like a big increase, but remember: Thousands of our fellow small businesses were able to make similar decisions. That’s a big reason why the economy boomed in 2018 and 2019: Main Street had more money to create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

But it’s not just job growth. The tax cut enabled us to increase the size of the bonuses we give our team every year. For the first time, we began offering a 401K retirement plan, a defined benefit plan and a profit-sharing plan, available to all our regular employees. We’ve also added other new benefits. For instance, after two of our workers had babies within months of each other, we set up a nursery in the office and hired a full-time nanny to provide childcare. The 2017 tax cut helps to fund this happy benefit at no cost to our employees.

These changes help us recruit and retain talented workers, ensuring that we can compete with the big national companies that dominate our industry. But if the Small Business Deduction expires next year, part of our competitive edge will also disappear. We’d potentially have to scale back benefits, perhaps ending some of what we started in recent years. And if the tax cut’s expiration causes the economy to get worse, we could have to lay off workers. The only other time we ever did that during our 31 year history was at the height of the pandemic, and it was devastating.

The simple truth is we need this tax cut to be made permanent, and the sooner, the better, since we’re planning for the future. Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress created the Small Business Deduction, lifting the entire economy in the process. Now they need to finish the job, give Main Street the same freedom as Wall Street, and empower us to keep creating jobs and giving back. If that’s not a day one priority for our leaders come January, I don’t know what is.

Laurie Sprouse is co-owner of Ultimate Ventures in Dallas. She’s a member of the National Federation of Independent Business.

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