Blogger: Tax Reform Should Benefit Small Business Too

A post in Roll Call’s “Beltway Insiders” blog argues that while most conversation about tax reform focuses on its effect on big business, any meaningful reform should also benefit “the lead horse when it comes to pulling the economy forward, creating new jobs and fostering innovation” — small business.

Dean Zerbe, former senior counsel to the Senate Finance Committee and the national managing director of alliant group, writes that small businesses are blocked from tax incentives for several reasons.

Zerbe cites the Alternative Minimum Tax bar on small businesses taking advantage of the Research and Development Tax Credit — the largest tax credit for business. While Congress may remove the AMT bar for the R&D credit this year, many similar limitations continue.

The complicated requirements of many tax provisions mean many small business owners — who “already face disproportionately higher costs for tax compliance” — won’t bother with credits. And caps on size and revenue for other credits mean that they benefit only a very few small businesses.

Zerbe concludes that rectifying these problems “would be a good start” to a tax code that worked better for small businesses.