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Small business owners across the country are receiving letters from the IRS questioning if they are reporting all of their cash income, in a new push by the agency some are saying could unnecessarily create fear in the small business community. The Wall Street Journal reports the initiative is an attempt to respond to what the agency feels is a widespread failure by small businesses to report all their cash sales. The agency says the letters are not the same as an audit, and it is simply seeking more tax information from the businesses. However, some lawmakers and business owners...

The 50/30 Rule There's no requirement to provide health care if you employ fewer than 50 people. Shared responsibility requirements kick in if you are a business owner with 50 or more employees who work 30 hours or more per week. Thirty hours is considered full-time. As a business owner, you also face shared responsibility if you employ the equivalent of 50 full-time employees-for example, a combination of 100 part-time employees who work 15 hours a week. To make matters more complicated, right now the rule applies even when those workers are split across multiple businesses. "One of the key...

Obama SBA Head Hasn't Heard Of ObamaCare Impacting Small BusinessPosted on November 21, 2012 **SNIP** "You know, I travel all around the country, every week I go to a different part of the country. I'm with small businesses. And I'm not hearing that," Mills said about the negative impact ObamaCare has on small business.

U.S. small business sentiment weakened in September for the fourth time in five months as fewer owners expected to add staff and make capital investments. The National Federation of Independent Business said on Tuesday its optimism index fell 0.1 point to 92.8 last month. The drop is a sign the U.S. economy is taking a hit from uncertainty over the possibility of tax hikes and government spending cuts next year, said William Dunkelberg, chief economist at the NFIB. "Owners are in maintenance mode — spending only where necessary and not hiring, expanding or ordering more inventories until the future becomes...

A majority of small business owners and manufacturers are mulling drastic changes to comply with Obamacare, with 21 percent set to drop health insurance to workers altogether and 38 percent planning to make employees pay much more. In a poll done for the National Association of Manufacturers and National Federation of Independent Businesses, 59 percent said that they will have to consider changes once the full law kicks in because increased costs will jeopardize their operations. According to the poll, 67 percent expect Obamacare to raise healthcare costs. The fears about spending more on health care are adding to growing...

If we include all taxes, the real-world tax rate is much higher than the "official" income tax rate. For those Americans earning between $34,500 and $106,000, the real-world middle class tax burden in high-tax locales is 15% + 25% + 5% + 15% + 15% = 75%. Yes, 75%. Before you start listing the innumerable caveats and quibbles raised by any discussion of taxes, please hear me out first. Let's start by defining "taxes" as any fee that is mandated by law or legal necessity. In other words, taxes are what is not optional. If we include all taxes, the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is launching a push to extend tax cuts for the middle class, as he seeks to shift the election-year economic debate from the dismal jobs market to assertions that Republican rival Mitt Romney protects the rich. Obama, in an address from the White House later Monday, will call on Congress to pass a one-year extension of tax cuts for households making less than $250,000 a year, said senior campaign adviser Robert Gibbs. The president's appeal to middle-class voters is aimed at drawing a contrast with Romney and congressional Republicans. The House GOP is expected...

President Obama is obviously panicked. Last month Obama and his supporters spent a lot more than Mitt Romney, but even with that cash advantage and the media on their side, the polls haven't budged. Moreover, the President and his campaign have been running around frantically trying to find something that will stick to Romney, be it provable lies about his outsourcing and outright smears involving offshore accounts. Still, Obama can't get above 47% and Romney hasn't even started campaigning in earnest or spending the $160 million he has on hand. Today, in yet another desperate attempt to win a news...

Pelosi Statement on President Obama’s Call to Extend the Middle Class Tax Cuts July 09, 2012 Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today after President Obama called for the extension of tax cuts for all Americans making up to $250,000 per year: “Today, President Obama once again stood firmly with America’s middle class and small businesses. Democrats and the President have always fought for an extension of the tax cuts for middle-income families to offer greater relief and economic certainty to all working Americans. “Once again, Republicans must decide: will they continue to hold middle...

With the economy threatening to fall into another recession and job growth plummeting, Obama came before the American people today demanding taxes be raised on those making over $250,000 a year, including what he admitted would include 3% of small businesses. Even if that 3% is correct, which is disputed, that 3% means a tax increase on 900,000 small businesses. That's nearly a million small business owners who will now be even more crippled and have less capital available to expand their payrolls -- which of course means fewer jobs for the middle class and the poor who would like...

Here are some charts from Reader Tim Wallace that help explain my report a few days ago that 23% of Small Business Owners (Approximately 6.21 million) Report "No Pay for a Year"; New Zealand, Singapore, US, Best Places to Start and Run a Business The first chart below shows actual employment of covered workers compared to the civilian population and labor force. Covered employees are those eligible for unemployment benefits (working or not). Some are currently collecting those benefits. In the following charts, "covered employment" or "net employment" refers to those with benefits and currently working. Population, Labor Force, Covered...

FRANKLIN — For the first time in years, Bill and Donna Olson, owners of a small contractor supply company, feel hopeful. Sales of power tools, ladders, and generators are up. More customers are visiting their showroom. Most important, nails — their business’s lifeblood — are selling again. ... At Marathon Tool, the Olsons said hiring one counter clerk at $35,000 a year would require them to also pay $1,750 in state unemployment insurance premiums, $2,170 in federal payroll taxes, $583 for workers’ compensation insurance, and $280 for federal unemployment insurance. Just covering the salary would require them to sell about...

Many on the right, and particularly those who do not truly understand supply-side economics, are propagating the idea that the extension of the Bush tax cuts will bolster investment by business and will trigger a wave of economic activity, thereby helping to pull the U.S. out of its worst economic malaise since Jimmy Carter. This conclusion is wrong. Moreover, by propagating this pseudo-supply side position, proponents have needlessly made Republicans vulnerable to flanking maneuvers by America's left -- maneuvers that could lead to disastrous consequences for the 2012 elections. If the Bush tax cuts are extended, the average American will...

This should not come as any surprise, considering many women manage family household budgets, as well as start and maintain new small businesses. Also many conservative women are running for public office and this coming Tuesday could see a “spike” in the numbers on the federal and state levels. Also many, many women have had for nearly two years, been involved with the “tea party movement”, from attending to planning them. Sadly, many women have also been subjected to layoffs from job positions, which also make the people of my gender turn against the Democrats.

Barack Obama’s small business jobs bill contains a dangerous loophole that could encourage billions of dollars in fraud in small business contracting programs, and protect fraudulent companies from prosecution. The bill is currently pending in the U.S. Senate. Section 1341 of H.R. 5297, the Small Business Jobs Act, contains provisions that would allow the Small Business Administration (SBA) to develop policies and procedures that would protect large businesses that have misrepresented themselves as small businesses from prosecution for felony contracting fraud. Since 2003, over a dozen federal investigations have found billions of dollars a month in federal small business contracts...

The anti-business agenda of Obama and the Democrats is a major factor. The only way a job is created is for someone to risk their money to start or expand a business. Anyone considering that must look at current and future economics. That look shows an increasing level of financial risk and headaches as Obama keeps pushing for higher taxes, higher energy costs, more regulation and more forced unionism. Obama Care has a new accounting nightmare, that requires a 1099 for all financial business transactions over $600... Obama is still pushing for the card check bill, which eliminates the secret...

Washington (AP) - Vice President Joe Biden says Republican assertions that small businesses would suffer if all of the expiring Bush tax cuts aren't extended are a "bunch of malarkey." A series of sweeping tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush are set to expire in January. The Obama administration wants to renew only those tax breaks that affect middle-class and lower income taxpayers, those with incomes under $250,000. Republicans want the tax cuts extended for all wage-earners.

1099 requirement buried in health-care law riles up small businesses . Bipartisan support is building for a repeal of a little-known tax rule in President Barack Obama's signature health-care law that has drawn the ire of small businesses around the country... Starting in 2012, businesses will be required to file a 1099 tax form each time they spend more than $600 a year to buy goods or services from another company. The 1099 rule is not entirely new. Under long-standing law, businesses have to file tax forms when they buy services from individual-owned businesses or partnerships. The new law extends...

Under a Dallas law enacted in 2008, businesses are prohibited from putting signs in the upper two-thirds of any window or glass door, and no more than 15 percent of any window or glass door may be covered by signs. The only way to comply with the new ordinance is by putting tiny signs at peoples feet, which is not an effective way to advertise. The law also bans signs that cover more than 25 percent of a buildings facade. Failure to take down the signs means you are at risk to be hit with a fine up to $2,000....

Anyone heard about the coming fall of small business? Speaker at a business seminar last week stated that during the next year $3 Trillion of loans for small business would be belly up. That means more unemployed, more home foreclosures and a lost less places to look for jobs. If we lose small business as the backbone of this country there will be nothing left but government jobs - oh wait.... that's what Obama wanted anyway - well here you go!!