Aaaand there it goes.
Rumor has it, the administration is having second thoughts on a payroll tax holiday it was thinking about for businesses. (note to Obama: please...PLEASE change your mind.)
When I first told my wife about the payroll tax holiday last week to cheer her up her response was this:
"Yeah, right."
and then
"...as if anybody is actually ever going to do anything that helps small business."
My wife is a small business person. She owns a store. I'm not going to tell you which store because I don't want to drag her biz into my blogging adventures. But I can tell you that while her store is technically doing well for a start-up in the middle of a recession...it's not a family cash cow. To give you an idea, our family was ever so slightly above the poverty line for 2009. And 2010 is just another hard year.
It's kinda funny, too...people are constantly coming into her store soliciting donations as if we're loaded, or people come in trying to sell her stuff from their home for extra money and he has to smile and turn them away gently when what she really means is "I'm sorry, we need to have enough to buy milk for our two year old this week."
That store is sort of our life.
And so, it was pretty exciting to hear about the possibility of a payroll tax holiday. It would help a LOT.
The Obama administration's next round of stimulus proposals are coming into focus, though the administration would rather prefer that we call them something other than "stimulus proposals." The much-rumored payroll-tax holiday is off the table -- at least for now. But there's a $50 billion infrastructure investment program, a $100 billion proposal to make the R&D tax credit permanent, and a $200 billion idea to allow companies to deduct the full cost of the capital investment in 2011. Add in the small business bill that's sitting still in the Senate, and the anti-business White House has thrown its muscle behind hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts and credits for, well, business.
-- Article
Here's a couple things I'd like our representatives to know...
1. A lot of people, like my wife, don't precisely CHOOSE to become small business people. It works like this: You lose your job --> The unemployment rate is 14.9% --> You look for a job forever as you sink, and you know you can't sell your house so you eventually say --> "fuck it, we either lose everything slowly or we lose it all at once" and you hang your sign if it's even an option.
2. You've got to understand the difference between SMALL BUSINESS and MICRO-BUSINESS.
Do you know what classifies as a Small Business?
LESS THAN 500 employees in manufacturing and LESS THAN $7 million in revenue for non-manufacturing.
Yay! Good. Help those businesses. They're drivers of employment.
Now...please ALSO help the micro-businesses that employ 3 people and have an annual revenue of > $80,000. Because I almost guaran-damn-tee this...
$100 billion proposal to make the R&D tax credit permanent, and a $200 billion idea to allow companies to deduct the full cost of the capital investment in 2011.
...it's NOT going to help the corner mom and pop grocer or the lady who opened a second hand kids clothing store.
Do you know what WILL? Do you know what will help them and their families get by RIGHT NOW? RIGHT NOW? Maybe help them have enough money to take their cat to the fucking vet? A fucking PAYROLL TAX HOLIDAY for micro-businesses that INCLUDES the owners.
Cuz...guess what?
3. It's not just the Fed taxing these micro-businesses. It's the Fed, the State, the county, AND the city. HA...did you know...did you know that a lot of cities TAX a small business for having equipment in their building? Like...if you buy a CHAIR or a DISPLAY case the city will actually tax you to have that chair or display case in the building?
Yeah...funny aside here...when the fucking Fed cuts services the STATE has to pick up the tab and raises its taxes or cuts its services...and when the STATE cuts services, the CITY has to pick up the tab and raise its taxes or cut its services.
All this republican talk of cutting public services is just passing the buck on down the line...it's not lightening the load for micro-biz even a little. If anything, it's making things worse. Property taxes are UP so the city can function and put out fires and stuff. And that directly hits micro-biz
I'm not talking about a tax cut for the rich.
I'm talking about giving the little guy a god damn break once in a while.
Hell...we've been living on so little for so long a payroll tax holiday for employees and employers of micro-businesses would DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY make our lives better and we'd instantly drop that money into the local economy. I might buy some god damn shoes.
OH...but no...NO...no...
That's the ONE part of the new stimulus that's being scrapped. The one that would have helped micro-biz.
Great.
Thanks.
As it turns out, Fred Johnson, the guy I'm officially blogging for has also been talking about a payroll tax holiday for micro-biz. I couldn't agree more. The dude Gets It. As always, he could use a dollar or two in donations to make his campaign stronger.