What can the Economic Stimulus Package do for your Small Business?

Well, as you all saw in our last blog, we are really looking at how the stimulus package that President Obama is pushing, and the Senate and House of Representatives are arguing back and forth about, can help the small business owner. All of our clients are small business owners and are acutely effected by the economic recession and need help just as much as the fat cats on Wall Street. (By the way, let's hear it for the President for limiting the income of these executives who are taking the tax payer's money to bail out their incompetence while still lavishing on themselves high salaries, jet planes, multi-million dollar office make-overs, etc.)

In our continuing research in this area, we ran across a very informative article published Saturday in the New York Times. It discusses past tax breaks, as well as potential future tax breaks that are part of the stimulus plan being debated. You can take a look at this article at the NY Times website: Is More Relief Ahead for Small Business? .

What we really liked were two key things:

a) A doubling to $250,000 that a business could immediately write off for purchases of equipment and other business items - rather than having to depreciate it over time. This was part of the 2008 stimulus package.


b) A provision in the new bill being proposed that would permit a business to write off losses from last year against profits from earlier years (up to 5 years back). One could potentially get a refund of past taxes paid.

According to the article: "Ordinarily when a business suffers a net operating loss, it can carry back the loss two years," Ms. Weltman explained. Lawmakers "want to extend that to five years, so if you have a very big loss, you're going to be able to get a refund now. They're trying to let businesses get some money back so they can use it to survive."

We are very pleased to see that some provisions may help the business activities of our clients. As stated in our last blog, we work closely with our clients to put them in pro-active situations over their businesses, rather than being the "effect" of the economic downturn. By learning basic management principals, including effective marketing, dealing properly with patients and clients so they are happy with the service delivered and refer more patients/clients, and implementing effective financial controls in the office, our clients can stay on top of their production and net profit rather than sliding down the slippery slope that many other offices are experiencing.

Let us know what you think of the ideas presented in this article and any other thoughts you have on the economic stimulus package and what it can do for small businesses. This is the topic of our Discussion Forum located at: Silkin Group Facebook Page

Larry Silver
President
Silkin


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