Congress Needs To Show Up For Work And Provide Tax Relief NOW
Nearly 50 percent of our nation’s jobs are in small businesses. They also represent more than half of all new job creation.
While Congress is pounding its chest and claiming credit as being ‘do-gooders’ for small business, it is really just business as usual in Washington. We are witnessing Congress and the big banks taking care of its liberal friends like the Ivy League colleges with multi-billion dollar endowments: Harvard, Yale and Princeton, for instance, all receiving stimulus relief from funds reserved for small businesses. We see big retail chains open during this crisis while small, locally-owned retail stores are struggling to survive.
This must stop. Congress is failing us.
Government and the big banks must stop taking care of their “friends” and stop picking winners and losers in the market place during this crisis.
Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. They are also the ones severely impacted by this health and economic crisis. There are now over 30 million people unemployed, a near $4 trillion deficit, and small businesses shuttered or hanging on by a thread.
We must work together to breathe life back into our Lowcountry economy; Congress needs to understand how our small businesses are among those hurting and move forward to support and to help them at this time.
This week I visited my hometown, Goose Creek, to a local small business to see how they were handling the crisis and to better understand how our food and beverage industry are trying to move forward.
I learned about the measures currently undertaken by restaurants to keep premises clean; sanitizing every menu or going to single-use menus; using a new pair of latex gloves every time they serve any table, utilizing masks, or whatever enhances the care taken to protect both their employees and their customers.
In its eagerness to help, Congress has once again hurt our local economies. I learned some employers in the food and beverage industry are unable to hire their employees back because the employees are making so much on unemployment they will not return to work “until the money runs out.” And I learned some are more than eager to get off unemployment and return to work but there are few jobs available.
I also learned many business owners unable to get PPP, are continuing to shell out their own money to keep their workers employed. The government has shut down their business or because of COVID they are not getting as much business, but these employers are leaning into this crisis to keep their workers employed. The question is: for how long?
I believe one area we should address from the original relief effort is a small business tax credit. Under the plan passed by Congress, businesses will be allowed to deduct their COVID-related losses from their tax returns. That is all well and good, but small businesses will not be able to file those returns with this year’s losses until 2021.
Our small businesses need relief now, not next year.
We can look at what has worked in a previous crisis… the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo for example. We should allow our small businesses to deduct their losses NOW, from their current returns due in July of this year. This would enable job creators to stay open that might otherwise have to close before they receive relief next year.
How do we get this done? First, Congress needs to show up for work. Second, when they do show back up at work, legislative action can be taken to prescribe and instruct a modification of the IRS rules.
This relief will not cost taxpayers a dime. It would simply assist our struggling small businesses with tax relief this year instead of next year. Congress can and should act now.
We must keep our focus on what powers our economy, and what will bring it back… the people. Our government must act prudently and without favoritism toward their friends in large corporations and Ivy league schools.
I am offering pragmatic and common sense ideas to deal with this crisis because this is how we are going to move our country and South Carolina forward.