Tax policy

In today’s political climate, a lot of political leaders talk about wanting to help small business, but oftentimes don’t take their actual comments and concerns into consideration when working on key policy issues, like tax reform and healthcare. That’s why we tackled this challenge head on at Small Business Majority’s 2017 Policy Forum, which brought 50 small business leaders from around the country to our nation’s capital to discuss how to promote policy reforms that will help small businesses thrive.

Everyone knows that reforming America’s tax system is among the tougher tasks lawmakers consider every year, which is why our tax code has undergone few significant changes over the last two decades. This slow pace of progress, however, is deeply harmful to small businesses that are consistently held back by tax rules that favor large corporations while hindering small firms.

September 8 marks the centennial of the estate tax, which establishes a tax on certain estates that are transferred as inheritance. To mark the occasion, we’ll likely see many pundits calling for the abolition of this tax and knocking its impact on small businesses. But the reality is that the estate tax, which only applies to estates valued above $5.4 million, impacts very few small businesses. Instead of worrying about a tax that affects only the very wealthy, we should take this time to focus on the real tax issues that hurt small businesses - like inversions and other loopholes that favor larger corporations at the expense of Main Street.

What happens when you put more than 100 small business owners in a room together to discuss the biggest issues facing small businesses today? That’s what we found out during our inaugural Small Business Leadership Summit, a three-day event of education, collaboration and action that took place May 11-13 in our nation’s capitol.

There are many complex policy issues that have a major impact on the small business community. Each week, we’re going to help break one of those issues down so small business owners can stay in the know and remain aware of their stake in these national issues. This week’s Issue Q&A is on tax reform.

Q: How will corporate tax reform help small businesses?

Small Business Majority CEO John Arensmeyer

Some work has been done recently to address tax loopholes for large corporations, such as the notorious corporate tax inversions, which put small businesses at a disadvantage, but more needs to be done to help level the playing field for small businesses.