WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Herb Kohl today voted in support of the Small Business Jobs Act, job creation legislation to provide small businesses with access to credit, tax cuts and incentives for investing.  The bill creates a targeted $30 billion Small Business Lending Fund to provide community banks with capital to increase small business lending, and includes $1.5 billion in grants to support $15 billion in new small business lending through existing state programs.  The Small Business Jobs Act is fully paid for with offsets that include eliminating biofuel tax credit eligibility for oil companies. The Senate approved the bill by a bipartisan vote of 61 to 38.

  “As we work to build job growth, the number one concern I hear from men and women who run small businesses in Wisconsin is that their access to lending has dried up.  Until that’s remedied, some of our most important employers are unable to grow and hire. This bill should help shake loose the capital that small businesses depend upon without adding to the deficit,” Kohl said.

According to the Senate Finance Committee, the Small Business Jobs Act:

·         Gives small businesses $12 billion in tax cuts

·         Helps small businesses create 500,000 new jobs

·         Increases small business lending

·         Helps small business owners access private capital to finance an expansion and hire new workers

·         Rewards entrepreneursfor investing in new small businesses

Helps Small Businesses Access Capital

·         Incentivizes investors by giving 100% exclusion from capital gains taxes on small business investments.

·         Gives $1.5 billion in grants to support $15 billion in new small business lending through already successful state programs.

·         Reduces the tax burden for small businesses by allowing them to carry back general business tax credits to offset their tax burdens from the previous five years.  Small businesses will also be able to count the general business credits against the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), freeing up capital for expansion and job growth.   

·         Creates a targeted $30 billion Small Business Lending Fund to provide small community banks with capital to increase small business lending.

·         Increases Small Business Administration (SBA) loan limits and improves access and lowers costs for small business to access SBA loans.

Increases Small Businesses’ Ability to Make Investments

·         Increases Section 179 expensing – permitting up to $500,000 in capital investments that businesses can expense.

·         Extends Bonus Depreciation – allowing taxpayers to immediately write off 50 percent of the cost of new equipment.

Promotes Entrepreneurship

·         Increases to $10,000 the tax deduction for start-up expenditures – doubling the current levels.

·         Creates new tools to help small businesses export goods, which will leverage more than $1 billion in exports.

·         Establishes a new State Export Promotion Grant Program (STEP), which would increase the number of small businesses that export goods to other countries.

Promotes Fairness in Competition

·         Improves tax fairness by preventing small businesses from incurring large tax penalties aimed at large corporations and wealthy individuals investing in tax shelters.

·         Allows self-employed individuals to deduct health insurance costs for purposes of paying the self-employment tax.

·         Improves small business contracting by clarifying that no single contracting program receives priority over another program when competing for federal contracts.