Letter to Congress Supporting Small Business Recovery

The Small Business Legislative Council (SBLC) sent a letter to Congressional representatives on July 16th with a list of proposals for considerationthat would assist small businesses and their employees . These proposals were developed based on a survey of the more than 40 trade associations that comprise SBLC’s permanent coalition.

• Establish carefully crafted liability shields for re-opening businesses that comply with CDC, OSHA and/or local requirements to prevent against COVID-19 related lawsuits from employees, customers, clients or patients. 
• Expand the Paycheck Protection Program to allow small 501(c)(6) organizations to obtain PPP loans and provide automatic loan forgiveness for loans under a certain threshold (the SBLC would suggest $250,000).
• Restore the business deductions eliminated by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including the deductibility of business meals, entertainment expenses and parking. This will free up needed cash for small businesses.
• Make permanent and expand the 199A deduction established by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act by significantly increasing the threshold level and eliminating the limitations applicable to specialized service businesses.
• Provide tax incentives for small businesses to offset the cost of deep cleaning their facilities and providing PPE to their employees. Increase infrastructure funding and use investment in infrastructure as a means of jumpstarting economic investment and creating more job opportunities. 
• Eliminate the cap on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction in order to boost small businesses in the real estate, construction and mortgage banking areas that are located in the areas most affected by the cap.
• Exempt non-public businesses with below a certain number (such as 100) of shareholders, members or partners or with annual gross receipts below a certain threshold (such $10,000,000 indexed) from Internal Revenue Code Section 409A. 
• Allow small business non-C corporation owner-employees to participate in their own employer-based plans such as cafeteria plans. 
• Simplify the 401(k) discrimination tests and make them easier to pass without having to adopt the safe harbor and eliminate the obsolete and complicated topheavy rules to make it easier for small businesses to administer their own plans and reduce fees to professional advisors.
• Relax the rules dealing with mortgage interest by allowing interest to be deducted over the $750,000 mortgage balance and increase the mortgage limit from $1 million to $1.5 million. These changes will help the real estate and mortgage banking industries which in turn will help countless small businesses.

Read the letter here.