Vice President Kamala Harris will propose a tax deduction of up to $50,000 for new small businesses on Wednesday, a tenfold increase over existing relief and her latest economic policy aimed at winning over middle-class Americans after jumping into the presidential race over a month ago.

  • cogman@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    You know what would really help small businesses, like a lot? Public health insurance (covering things like vision and dental). A huge part of the cost of doing business is benefits for employees. Well, with public health insurance that’s a huge budget item that suddenly small businesses don’t have to pay.

    Want to make it better? Expand social security to be something you could live off of. Boom, now you as a small business owner don’t need benefits like 401ks. Your employees will be well taken care of by a government ran pension.

    Want to go a step further? Expand public housing, public transport, and food security programs. Now all the sudden a business doesn’t need to pay top dollar because the cost of living for everyone has been significantly decreased. You can easily find low wage workers and hire crews of them because the added income for everyone is more of a bonus rather than a necessity.

    What else could you do? Reduce the full time work week from 40 hours to 30 hours. For a small business, it means you can actually focus on having your employees doing useful work rather than having them hang around an extra 10 hours a week doing nothing. For the employees, now they have spare time on their hands which means more opportunities to interact with the community and small businesses.

    By taking care of the basic needs of the population you give the population a lot of spare capital and time. All of which can stimulate the economy to new heights.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      You know what would really help small businesses, like a lot? Public health insurance (covering things like vision and dental). A huge part of the cost of doing business is benefits for employees. Well, with public health insurance that’s a huge budget item that suddenly small businesses don’t have to pay.

      It would massively help the creation of small businesses, too, by massively reducing the cost/risk faced by entrepreneurs.

  • Veedem@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Interesting incentive move. I immediately wonder how people are going to exploit it, though I don’t believe the potential for abuse should dissuade an attempt at progress.

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Yeah, if this was a credit that’d be a different story and very ripe for exploitation. However, a deduction is still quite a bit of money to reduce your taxable income by.

        • expatriado@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          my comment implies there was already a business or a business to be made, and closing and reopen was a metod to game system for 50k deduction, hence less taxes, each time this is done

          • gdog05@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            If your business is doing so poorly that deducting a single person’s wage for the first year is worth that effort then…I guess yeah. Game away.

              • gdog05@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                No, I’m not. That’s the thing. I know that a very small business (sub five employees) lives and dies by word of mouth and repeat business. Something that closing down and becoming another business with another name (even a derivative) will absolutely kill. On top of the IRS very likely having protections against this very scenario, starting a new business with a new license, and a new name, a new logo, and a new bank account, insurance, and a new domain name probably (in which case, software, accounts, POS, would be tied to the wrong domain email which is embarrassing if it’s not changeable), and does it need permits? They’re new too. Did you have an LLC? Lawyer fees and processing and time. All to save $50k in taxes which likely weren’t terrible if you’re that small.

                It’s basically like starting a game of Civ or something similar and adjusting everything in the custom gameplay mode to make a few things a little easier in game. And then you get a few hours of playing in and realize you borked the game and would rather play a typical campaign.

                • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                  3 months ago

                  You just use the same phone numbers and accounts and stuff. There’s been standard ways to redirect people to new names for at least centuries.

                  It costs a couple hundred bucks to start a new llc in most states. People just use their old articles of incorporation and change the names (I know one who just crossed the old ones out with a pen and wrote the new ones in over the top).

                  Permitting almost always has exceptions for existing operations.

                  When you close a business on paper you don’t suddenly lose access to services in the name of that business.

                  If you can figure out a good reason to (any reason counts, restructuring, etc) you can have the same dba filing for your new company, not change anything externally and be fine.

                  What you’re not considering is that all of the above things might amount to five grand if you live in a particularly restrictive state, but that’s still 45k in tax breaks a year and if there was some reason to restructure internally now you’re getting paid for it.

  • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    My [likely ignorant] take is that we need better incentives for workers, renters, and first-time homeowners, not MBA shysters “entrepreneurs” creating “new businesses” dropshipping imported garbage and other ventures that add little value to society.

    • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Tf are you on about? You realize that a huge chunk of small business owners are middle class, right? Hell, many of them are barely holding on at all. My wife is a social worker and started her own “business” this year, which is just a small office she rents so she has a safe place to meet her clients. I promise you we are far from being wealthy. Don’t confuse small business as being riddled with millionaires and billionaires, because that’s just complete nonsense.

      • mozingo@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I assumed they were pointing out how small business tax breaks can be taken advantage of by those wealthy types pretending to be people like your wife. On the other hand, benefits to workers, renters and first time home-owners can’t be exploited as simply and would benefit your wife just the same. But if I’m wrong then, yea, I agree with you 100%.

      • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Real weird that people don’t seem to get that competition from small, local businesses is what we want to end the corporate grip on our lives. Millionaires get venture capital loans, not $50k small business loans.

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense. Big corpos use shell companies to completely evade tax obligations (e.g. Google, Apple, etc), not get a measly $50k deduction off their enormous profits.

  • Rookwood@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    We don’t need more small businesses. We need less corporations, less ultra wealthy and more healthy middle class. This does not solve anything and a one time tax deduction doesn’t make small businesses sustainable when they have to compete against corpos.

    • mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Having more small businesses is how you get less corporations and a healthier middle class… there’s a ton of great incentives for small businesses already, but the hardest part is the initialization and the first year. This makes that way easier. This is a good idea, you just have a bad view.

      • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Thank you. I can’t believe there are multiple comments in this thread hating on small businesses and somehow justifying that as them being anti-corpo/wealthy elite. We need less Walmart/Amazon/etc and more smaller, locally owned and run businesses.

        • laverabe@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Even better just require all businesses to have a union or coop democratic structure when expanded beyond one employee. Fix the problem from the beginning. All employees should have equal voice. CEO one vote, delivery truck driver one vote. For all companies large and small.