Today, Women Impacting Public Policy Board Member Rebecca Boenigk, CEO of Texas-based Neutral Posture, urged Congress to reform the tax code so it helps small businesses thrive and grow during the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax Policy hearing on tax reform.
“If Washington is serious about both tax reform and strengthening the American economy, it’s long past time to enact a plan that creates a level playing field for businesses and encourages investment and business growth,” Boenigk said.
- Making deductions and credits equitable no matter what the structure of the business, given 90 percent of companies are pass-through entities
- Simplify the tax code for small businesses to reduce the imbalanced cost of compliance versus large businesses
- The fact that women-owned businesses disproportionately miss out on key tax provisions worth more than $255 billion because of how they are legally organized and the industries they are in, as detailed in American University’s Kogod Tax Policy Center’s new report, Billon-Dollar Blind Spot which uses a WIPP survey for analysis.
- Permanently repealing the estate tax to allow small businesses to pass from one generation to the next
“Lawmakers must take Rebecca’s testimony seriously and work on reforms that allows women entrepreneurs to pursue new investments and grow their companies,” said WIPP President Jane Campbell. “Women business owners have been starting and growing businesses at a breakneck pace in recent decades despite multiple challenges including tax incentives they don’t fully benefit from and tax burdens that are difficult to bear. Imagine what they could do if the tax code created stronger opportunities to help them grow and scale.”
Women’s entrepreneurship has become an increasingly powerful and important economic force. The number of women business owners has spiked from 4.1 million to more than 10 million since Congress last passed a comprehensive overhaul of the tax code in 1986. Women-owned businesses employ 9 million people and contribute $1.6 trillion to the economy every year.
For WIPP’s 2017 Economic Agenda, which includes a discussion of tax reform, visit: http://bit.ly/2nnhrxI.
For the full Kogod report Billion Dollar Blindspot: How the U.S. Tax Code’s Small Business Expenditures Impact Women Business Owners visit http://bit.ly/2skDdp5.
For the full WIPP survey about how women business owners use the tax code visit http://bit.ly/2tcERFW.
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About Women Impacting Public Policy
Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) is a national nonpartisan organization advocating on behalf of women entrepreneurs—strengthening their impact on our nation’s public policy, creating economic opportunities, and forging alliances with other business organizations. www.WIPP.org
