Assisting Small Businesses

With the economy down, we should be doing everything we can to support our small business community. Because of the recession our local businesses recently faced several major hurdles, and the Legislature debated what to do about it:

I co-sponsored House Bill 2169 to protect our small businesses from a 1000% increase in unemployment taxes, automatically triggered by the high number of people who recently lost their jobs and are collecting unemployment. The Unemployment fund was quickly being depleted, and the automatic increase was designed to keep the fund from running empty. Unfortunately, the increase was so large that most businesses would be hard pressed to cover that cost. HB 2169 reduces the automatic ten-fold increase in unemployment taxes for small businesses, and allows the fund to be replenished over time. The Hawaii Chamber of Commerce explained that, “Without… relief, more than 5,000 employees could be put out of work.”

Opposing Increases

Taxes pay for our government services, but increases in taxes can also have unintended consequences. After hearing from many small business owners, it became clear thousands would be affected by the proposed increase in income taxes in House Bill 1747, because business income is often reported through income tax filings. Without a better way to distinguish the two, I ended up as one of only 12 Representatives to oppose this measure.