Tax Reform Is Here
Help the Federal Reserve Learn About Small Business Credit
And…Action! – Taking a Break
Microlenders and loan packagers, join us for MicroLending Essentials on November 7-9, 2017 in Los Angeles. Sign up before September 30 to take advantage of the early bird rate.
The Goodies – This week’s highlight is Opening Doors’ efforts to assist Dreamers with preparation of their applications for two-year renewals before October 5. You can help by helping their clients pay the filing fees of $495. Make sure to write “DACA” under ‘Designation.’
Tax Reform Is Here
This week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, National Economic Director Gary Cohn and top Republicans in the House and Senate released
a plan for overhauling our tax code.
MSGI, our friends in DC, offers this summary of the plan and CNN
summarized of how business taxes would change if the plan goes through. Here’s a couple of highlights:
Cut corporate tax rate to 20%: Such a drastic drop from today’s 35% rate would put the U.S. rate below the 22.5% average in the industrialized world. But doing so will be expensive. It’s estimated to cost roughly $1.5 trillion over a decade.
Drop tax rates on small businesses and other pass-throughs: The top rate would be 25% down from 39.6% on the profits of so-called pass-through businesses. A pass-through passes its profits through to partners and shareholders, who then report them on their individual returns. The framework will recommend the committees include measures to prevent gaming, in which people try to recharacterize their wages as pass-through profits to get the lower rate.
Our colleagues at
Small Business Majority have been looking at tax plans and analyzing what tax reform will mean for small businesses. For example they say that cutting those rates will help very few small business owners.
It is a myth that top individual tax rates adversely harm Main Street small businesses. In fact, the current top rate is paid by less than 2 percent of pass-through business owners. Nearly 9 in 10 businesses that pass through their income already pay at the 25 percent rate or less. Instead, this proposal would primarily help Wall Street hedge fund managers and wealthy lawyers rather than small businesses.
Whether or not the pass-through that the plan proposes will extend to all small businesses remains to be seen when the details are hammered out.
Prosperity Now says “What’s being lauded today as “tax reform” is little more than tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations,” and “as written, the proposed tax cuts…would amount to
$1.5 trillion in revenue loss for the federal government, potentially jeopardizing federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.” And possibly, the SBA and Treasury programs on which our sector relies.
Californians will take a hit if the plan is implemented as is because it eliminates the federal deduction for state and local taxes; in 2014 Californians reduced their taxable income by $101 billion.
CAMEO will work for tax reform that promotes fairness and equity, economic activity, start-up of businesses, and survival, growth and innovation of micro-businesses and the self-employed. Our first step is a briefing in Washington DC on taxes and the gig economy on October 26 – stay tuned for more details.
Help the Federal Reserve Learn About Small Business Credit
CAMEO is partnering with the Federal Reserve on a Small Business Credit Survey for both pre-start and existing businesses to help business service providers and lenders understand real-time business conditions.
Findings from the 2016 survey have been featured in reports on
Employer Firms and
Startup Firms. Additional reports are planned for 2017, including reports on minority-owned, women-owned, micro, and rural firms. Right up our alley and important to our field! Help the Federal Reserve, the sector, and the clients you serve. Please, send this email to your clients:
SUBJECT LINE: “How is your business doing?” Or “Small Business Owners: Make your voice heard!”
Dear Business Owner or Manager,
As a CAMEO member, [MYORGNAME] is partnering with the Federal Reserve on a Small Business Credit Survey for both pre-start and existing businesses, and we’d like you to participate. Your answers will help business service providers and lenders understand real-time business conditions. This short survey takes less than 9 minutes to complete. Individual responses are confidential and summary results will be shared with you.
Take the survey today!
Questions? Contact SmallBusinessResearch@atl.frb.org.
If you have problems with the link above, copy and paste the following URL into a new browser window:
https://frbatlanta.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0pQZOEEPPnpFNlj?orgid=CAMEO&parentid=&reserve_bank=SF.
And…Action! – Quick Actions
Earlier this year, we started this section — And Action! — because the current political reality demands that we participate more fully in the budget and legislative process. We’re going to take a month’s break from the formal efforts so that all of us are ready to support CAMEO’s FY2018 Appropriations request in the federal budget and engage in the looming tax reform debate. For the next few weeks, we’ll list some relevant actions that are easy to do so we conserve our energy for the budget and tax reform advocacy.
Net Neutrality: The Senate is about to vote on whether to reconfirm former top Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai as the chairman of the FCC. Chairman Pai has celebrated the death of Internet privacy rules that stop ISPs like Comcast and AT&T from collecting and selling the details of your online activity to advertisers, and launched an all out attack on net neutrality protections that keep the web free from censorship, throttling, and extra fees. Tell Senators Feinstein and Harris to
vote NOT to reconfirm Chairman Pai.
Support Women’s Entrepreneurship: A bipartisan bill Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced in response to a WIPP report about women being shut out of government contracts has been approved by the Senate. The bill (S. 1038) asks the Small Business Administration to conduct a comprehensive study on all socio-economic group participation, including women, in these contracts. This is an important step to ensure that all small businesses have equal access to contracts, increasing opportunities for women-owned small businesses. Our colleagues at WIPP are asking you to
thank Sen. Ernst and Gillibrand for spearheading this effort and standing up for women-owned small businesses!
Survey: CalNonprofits are again asking “How are CA nonprofits responding to the Trump administration?” Shortly after the presidential election, more than 800 nonprofits reported on changes they were seeing and anticipating. Many of the same matters — funding, immigration, healthcare, environment — are still in flux. So they have a new survey and will compare results. Take the quick survey by
October 9, 2017
The Goodies
New opportunities for training, conference information, funding, scholarships, and other information that have crossed our desks since the last
Must Know. I have posted a running tab of current
Industry Goodies on the CAMEO website that lists items that were in past emails. Check it out to make sure you’re not missing anything, like grants whose deadlines are still alive!
CAMEO Tool: Susan Brown, our microlending expert, created Phase I of a
Community Loan Policy Manual Workbook to assist community lenders to create fully developed loan policies manual. Lenders of every stripe that address each topic and answer all the questions will have a complete loan manual that reflects a comprehensive approach to the details of running a high-quality program.
Member Kudos: Opportunity Fund and Pacific Community Ventures are joining forces on an initiative to help Santa Clara county entrepreneurs and small businesses. The effort is supported by a $600,000 grant from Google.org! Way to go!
Member Kudos: Congratulations to WEV’s Program Manager, Leah Gonzales, for being honored with
Pacific Coast Business Times Top 40 Under 40 Award!
Member Kudos: CAMEO welcomes BALLE’s new Executive Director Rodney Foxworth! We look forward to working with him on promoting local small businesses (your clients!) and business ownership as a key wealth building strategy.
New Report: The California Reinvestment Coalition released
Small Business Owners Struggle to Access Affordable Credit, a new report focused on the challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs face when trying to get a loan to start, maintain, or grow their businesses.
For Your Client: This is the chance for your clients to voice what are their top priorities, what issues they face as a small business owner, and what changes they want to see in California? Have them take the
2017 California Small Business Survey!
For Your Clients: Small Business Majority has several
free webinars on access to capital and retirement: “Access to Capital 101: Funding Options to Start and Grow Your Business” is on October 4, and October 18 at 11:00 AM PD // 2:00 PM EDT and “Money Now, Money Later: The ABCs of Financing Your Small Business and Building Your Retirement” is on October 10, and October 24 at 11:00 AM PST // 2:00 PM EDT.
Donate for Dreamers: Opening Doors assist Dreamers with legal consultation and preparation of their applications. Many current DACA individuals living in our community are racing to apply for two-year renewals before October 5. Unless they do so, they will be unable to work and face possible deportation. You can help by
donating to help their clients pay the filing fees of $495. Make sure to write “DACA” under ‘Designation.’
New Report: Prosperity Now and the Institute for Policy Studies look at the racial wealth divide at the median over the next four and eight years in
The Road to Zero Wealth. They find that if you examine median wealth trends over the past three decades, the racial wealth divide will only continue to grow—into perpetuity—and it will do so at an accelerated rate. Join them for a
webinar on October 17, 2017 at 11:00am-12:30pm PDT to discuss this crucial issue and what can be done to address this problem.
Professional Meeting: Registration is now open for CRC Member Meetings. Connect with colleagues about experiences in the field and to share updates on CRC campaigns and recent policy changes that impact communities. Lunch will be provided and registration is now open. If you have any questions, please contact
Liana Molina.
For Your Clients: The California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Small Business Majority Access are presenting an access to capital webinar in Spanish on
October 24,
November 21, and
December 14 at 10:00am PT // 1:00pm ET. Click the links for registration and information in Spanish.
Economic Policy Event: Join UC-Riverside School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting & Development for “
Re-imagining Economic Growth in the Inland Empire” on
October 25, 2017from 12:00-4:00pm. CAMEO members receive a $25 discount with the code “cameo17.”
Save the Date: OFN will hold the 2017 Western Regional Meeting Wednesday,
November 1 in San Francisco at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Industry Conference: Join Bay Area funders, nonprofits, public agencies, and policymakers on November 2, 2017 in Oakland for a day of ideas, information-sharing and connecting with other innovators in the asset building field. Register for
2017 Assets Matter Symposium.]]>
