MBA News

Last week President Barack Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act, the most significant step on behalf of our Nation's small businesses in over a decade. Small businesses like yours will start benefiting immediately from this bill, which provides support and incentives to grow and hire.

You can learn more about how the Small Business Jobs Act will help your small business by watching an interview with Marie Johns, SBA Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, moderated by OPEN Forum's Scott Roen. Deputy Administrator Johns answered small business owners' questions about the Small Business Jobs Act and opportunities for small businesses as part of the Recovery Act and Affordable Care Act. You can watch the interview on openforum.com/whitehouse.

As President Obama said when signing the bill, "government can't guarantee success but it can knock down barriers to success, like the lack of affordable credit. Government can't create jobs to replace the millions that we lost in the recession, but it can create the conditions for small businesses to hire more people, through steps like tax breaks."

In addition to the small business tax breaks passed earlier this year, the Small Business Jobs Act created eight more small business tax breaks, which will accelerate more than $55 billion in tax relief over the next year to businesses across the country. These breaks include:

* Eliminating capital gains taxes completely for key investments in small businesses - driving capital to as many as one million small firms across America.
* Extending and expanding the eligibility to immediately write off more expenses for four and a half million small businesses and individuals.
* Creating a new deduction for health insurance for two million self-employed Americans, which is estimated to provide over $1.9 billion in tax cuts for these entrepreneurs.
* Increasing the tax break for anyone looking to open up a business - a $10,000 deduction to help entrepreneurs by giving them an immediate incentive to invest in starting up a new small business today.

Small businesses will also benefit from an increase of available capital from the new Small Business Lending Fund and expansion of current SBA lending programs, growing the opportunities for small businesses to get the loans they need to grow and hire new employees. The Act also includes language that will make it easier for Federal agencies to assist in small business contracting.