WASHINGTON, DC— U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) today applauded Senate passage of legislation to provide tax cuts to small businesses and increase their access to capital. Senator Casey released the following statement:
“I have heard from small business owners all across Pennsylvania about their struggles in this economy to grow and to obtain capital. If businesses can’t grow, they can’t hire. The legislation the Senate passed today will give small businesses $12 billion in tax cuts, provide $30 billion to community banks to help provide access to capital for small businesses and increase SBA loan limits. This is needed help for communities in Pennsylvania and the economy.
“It is unfortunate that some people in Washington don’t share the same sense of urgency in delivering help to small businesses. This bill should have been passed months ago. It would not have passed at all if not for a couple of Republicans who put help for small business and workers ahead of partisan politics.”
This bill would create a $30 billion lending fund, which would provide working capital to small banks. It is estimated that community banks would be able to use this fund to leverage up to $300 billion in loans to small businesses. The fund will not increase the deficit but is estimated to return over $1.1 billion over ten years to the Treasury.
This legislation will increase SBA 7(a) loan limits from $2 million to $5 million. It will increase 504 loan limits from $1.5 million to $5.5 million, and microloans from $35,000 to $50,000. Qualifying small businesses will therefore have access to more substantial loans to meet their business needs. SBA estimates that this would increase lending to small businesses by $5 billion in the first year.
The legislation includes an estimated $12 billion in tax cuts that would help small businesses hire more workers. Key provisions include:
- Allow investors in small businesses to take a 100 percent exclusion from capital gains taxes on small business investments made in 2010;
- Temporarily increase the maximum deduction for business start-up expenditures in 2010 and 2011 from $5,000 to $10,000, subject to a $60,000 threshold;
- Increase the Section 179 expensing provision to allow small businesses to immediately expense up to $500,000 (up from $250,000) of the cost of tangible personal property, including up to $250,000 of the cost of improvements to leasehold property, restaurant property, and retail property;
- Allow self-employed taxpayers to deduct health care costs for payroll tax purposes on their 2010 tax returns;
- Extend Recovery Act provisions that allow businesses to immediately write-off 50 percent of the cost of capital expenditures for one additional year for qualifying property purchased and placed into service in 2010;
- Expand bonus depreciation to allow long-term contractors that use the percentage-of-completion method of accounting to elect bonus deprecation on property whose depreciation term is less than seven years;
- Allow small businesses to use all types of general business tax credits to offset AMT liability; and
- Allow small businesses with less than $50 million in average gross annual receipts for the prior three years, to carryback unused credits for five years.
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