Today, President Obama signed a law that removes the expanded “1099” reporting requirement from the Affordable Care Act. This is a big win for small businesses.
The SBA and President Obama supported repealing this provision, which would have required businesses to send 1099 forms for all purchases of goods and services over $600 annually. With this bipartisan effort, we have removed a requirement that would have been an undue barrier to small business growth.
The many benefits of the health reform law for small businesses remain in place. These tools are already helping small business owners find more affordable and accessible coverage for themselves and their employees.
In particular, with tax day coming on Monday, don’t forget that many small business that provide health insurance are eligible for tax credits, thanks to the new law. You can learn more at this page on the IRS website.
Today, as part of continued improvements to SBA’s website, we launched a new online toolkit to help banks, credit unions and other financial institutions across America who lend to small businesses. Click on “For Lenders” at the top right of any page on SBA.gov, including this one.
For those who are current SBA lenders, you can use the For Lenders site to easily download forms, find a service center, get current rates, and submit both applications and loan packages.
Lenders are vital partners to help entrepreneurs and small business owners grow successful companies and create good jobs. Over the last two years, all of us at SBA have worked hard to strengthen these partnerships. I hope that current and prospective SBA lenders will find this new tool to be useful, giving them better information at their fingertips in order to help America’s small business owners get the capital they need.
This week there are two opportunities for you to have your voice heard by the Administration.
First, on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Geithner and I are participating in a conference on access to capital. The conference is bringing together policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and others to look at how we can get more capital into the hands of small businesses. And we want to hear from you. If you have a question or an idea for us to discuss at the conference, email it to AccessToCapRSVP@treasury.gov by Monday evening.
Next, as part of Startup America, Administration officials have been traveling the country, talking with entrepreneurs about what barriers stand in their way. To get even more input, we’re holding an online Reducing Barriers roundtable with Fast Company. On Wednesday from 12-12:45 pm, Gene Sperling, chair of the National Economic Council, and I, want to hear from you about what regulations we can change and what we can do to help entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses.
On Tuesday, I was in Cleveland with President Obama, a large contingent of his Cabinet, and about 150 small business owners. The President opened the day by telling the small business owners that the goal was “to hear from you, to gain your counsel, and to talk about how America can help you succeed so that you can keep helping America succeed.”
In my breakout session on Entrepreneurship, we heard from 25 small business owners. The President stopped by and had the chance to talk with a barbecue restaurant owner, a portable microwave manufacturer, a woman-owned construction company, and others.
Several topics came up. We talked about how access to capital is still a big problem for too many entrepreneurs and small business owners. We discussed the importance of the small business tax cuts that the President has already signed into law. We talked about promoting more high-growth entrepreneurship through efforts like Startup America. And we discussed ways to identify and remove barriers to entrepreneurship, including a new series of roundtables in entrepreneurial communities that will be kicked off next week in Durham, North Carolina.
We need to do everything we can to support those small business owners – and others across America – because they’re the ones that are working every day to out-innovate, out-build, and out-compete the rest of the world.
Moving forward, we’ll continue to support regional economies like Northeast Ohio as they work to create good jobs. The SBA, for example, has helped support a clustering effort led by a local high-tech economic development organization called NorTech, which the President discussed in his closing remarks. And we’re also expanding a successful and intensive entrepreneur training program to nearby Youngstown, Ohio.
And all of us throughout the Administration will continue to listen to the needs of entrepreneurs and small business owners, using their feedback and insights to ensure that we’re supporting them as they grow our economy and create jobs.
Over the past two days, we celebrated the success of innovative small businesses that have grown, and we laid the groundwork for even more to follow in their footsteps.
First, on Tuesday, I met with about 50 businesses that have collectively created tens of thousands of good jobs through the Small Business Innovation Research program. Each year, SBIR drives $2.5 billion in federal research and development dollars into the hands of small firms. The goal is to help entrepreneurs develop cutting-edge products and technologies that meet federal research and development needs and can be successful in the marketplace. We gave out the SBIR’s Tibbetts Awards, and we also inducted eight firms, including big names like Qualcomm and Symantec, into the SBIR Hall of Fame because of key SBIR funding in their formative years.
Then, on Wednesday, we rolled out one of the exciting new Startup America initiatives, called the Entrepreneurial Mentor Corps. To build on the excellent job that SBA counselors do to help Main-Street small businesses, we’re aiming to provide targeted and tailored mentoring for high-growth small firms, in particular. Through the initial pilot with the U.S. Department of Energy, four clean-energy “business accelerators” will match about 100 promising entrepreneurs with experienced mentors. The mentors will guide those small firms to the tools, opportunities, and contacts they need to get on the fast track to innovation, job creation and global competitiveness.
As you can tell, these past few weeks have been particularly busy at SBA. Check out our Newsroom and join us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with what’s going on.
