Business Climate, Federal Deficit and Taxes Top the List of Key Issues
Sixty-three percent of small-business owners think the country is on the wrong track. In addition, 67 percent rate the business climate fair or poor. And nearly two-thirds are very concerned about the size and growth of the federal deficit. Those are just some of the results of a wide-ranging survey of small-business owners recently released by the National Federation of Independent Business.
“Every candidate for every office will talk about small business for the next 13 months. The real question is whether they’re listening to small business,” said NFIB Research Director Holly Wade.
For example, according to the research, 67 percent of small-business owners think their taxes are too high. Only 6 percent believe they don’t pay enough. A large plurality of small-business owners think the personal income tax inhibits growth compared to other federal taxes. And a plurality of small-business owners think that Washington’s top economic priority should be getting the federal budget under control.
“Compare what’s important to small-business owners with what official Washington is doing, and there isn’t much overlap,” Wade noted.
On no issue is that truer than health care. The NFIB asked small-business owners what is more important: bringing down the high cost of health care or expanding coverage to the uninsured. More than twice as many owners said it was more important to reduce costs.
“It’s noteworthy that five years after the ACA was enacted a majority of small-business owners still think that bringing down costs should be the top priority. That tells us that the law isn’t working as advertised, at least as far as small-business owners are concerned,” Wade explained.
Also on health care, a huge majority of small-business owners think that employers should be allowed to offer tax-deductible reimbursements to help workers get coverage. Under an IRS regulation that took effect this this year, that practice is now illegal. In fact, businesses that reimburse workers for the cost of health care can now be fined 17 times more than businesses that fail to provide any coverage at all under the ACA.
“This is a perfect example of how federal policy is completely at odds with the small-business community,” Wade said. “Many small-business owners can’t afford group coverage, and they see health care reimbursements as a viable alternative. Three-quarters don’t believe the government should punish that decision.”
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