Legislation holds hope for small businesses

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Self-employed and micro-businesses are often overlooked by lawmakers when it comes to policy, but that might be about to change, according to this week’s update from the National Association for the Self Employed.

The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, currently under consideration in the Senate, contains provisions designed to help America’s smallest businesses.

The NASE has come out in support of the bill in hopes of correcting what it views as an inequity in the tax code that affects 23 million self-employed Americans

One key component of the bill: allowing the self employed to receive the same tax treatment of health insurance costs as other business entities. Today sole proprietors are unable to deduct health insurance costs as a business expense, leaving them to pay more in payroll taxes than any other business.

Another feature of the bill is an amendment which helps simplify he tax code – and the complex calculation and paperwork burden associated with the home office deduction.

Other provisions included in the Small Business Jobs Act include:

• Increased deduction for start-up expenses – currently, entrepreneurs can deduct up to $5,000 of expenses with a $50,000 phase-out. The bill would increase the deduction to $10,000 with a $60,000 phase-out threshold beginning in 2010.
• Increase of Section 179 expensing to $500,000 with a phase-out threshold of $2 million in 2010 and 2011.
• Creation of a Small Business Lending Fund which would provide federal funding to community banks, credit unions and community development loan funds to increase small business lending.