SBCA ACCOMPLISHMENTS

"SBCA has become the most effective voice in Washington on legislation and regulations affecting small businesses and their owners. This is due primarily to the recognition by members of Congress and their staff of SBCA's credibility and high level of expertise in areas of taxation, retirement plans, employee benefits and health care. As one of the founders and an active member of SBCA for over 25 years, I have seen the work of SBCA gain significant tangible benefits for small businesses and their owners. Membership in the SBCA is a must for any successful small business and is worthy of support and membership by any large business that wishes to support this most vibrant segment of our country's private enterprise system." Morton A. Harris Past President

We are currently:

• Working to bring certainty in the estate tax area for small business owners. We have testified before several committees in the House and the Senate setting forth the reforms needed in the estate tax system; specifically increasing the estate tax exemption to $3.5 million immediately and gradually increasing it to $5 million, reuniting the gift and estate tax systems, maintaining the current step up in basis and creating a new exemption for up to $1 million in retirement plan assets
  

• Working for more favorable tax treatment for retirement plans by reducing complexity and maintaining tax incentives - including making the automatic enrollment safe harbor provisions more workable for small business and allowing small businesses to sponsor employee pay all 401(k) plans without triggering the application of the unfair top-heavy rules aimed exclusively at small businesses
  
  
  

• Working to make tax penalties and IRS oversight more reasonable - the enactment of an expansion of the tax preparer and tax shelter reporting penalties and their enforcement have become onerous and at times, unconscionable in application, with the IRS being judge and jury without taxpayer rights. We are educating the Congress as to these IRS enforcement programs and seeking a more reasonable approach to these concerns.

• Supporting the Small Business Cafeteria Plan - S. 555 - which will provide new rules for Cafeteria Plans so that these employee benefit plans that are appreciated by employees will be available for small businesses and their owners. By doing so, the cost of health care for the employees of the small business will be reduced.
  
  
• Working to fix the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax).
  
  
• Actively participating in the Congressional debate on how to solve the Medicare and health care crisis. The SBCA understands that the pressure due to the price fixing inherent in our Medicare system, combined with the better rates obtained by big business and the free coverage given to some of the uninsured have caused small businesses to pay way more than their fair share for health insurance coverage. We are committed to making sure that our country will have access to quality medical health care. We are fortunate to have many of the leading experts in the country on health care issues and how they affect small business.
  
  
• Working to exempt small businesses from the absurdly complicated Internal Revenue Code Section 409A that now treats many small business standard operational agreements as "non-qualified deferred compensation agreements" (which they are not...). The amount of $$ and time that will be expended by small businesses to comply with this code section is unconscionable. A good code section for the "real" non-qualified deferred compensation agreements used by the top execs at big business is almost nonsensical when applied to the small business world.
  
  
• Watching to make sure that changes are not made to the tax code that can adversely affect small businesses such as the national sales tax plan euphemistically referred to as the "Fair Tax."
  
  
• Working for repeal of unfair burdens and tax rates on professional service corporations
  
  
• Working to fight new federal and state bureaucracies and taxes on small businesses
  
  
  

Our History

2006 - Successfully worked with members of Congress to make the favorable EGTRRA pension provisions permanent and succeeded in changing the law so that any beneficiary (not just a spouse) is able to roll over inherited retirement benefits to IRAs

2005-Worked with key members of Congress to maintain the step up in basis on death so that small business owners do not end up hurt by estate tax reform or repeal

2004-Worked to bring Cafeteria Plans to small business by allowing small business owners to participate in the plan, reform unfair discrimination rules, allow Cafeteria Plans to provide long-term care insurance and to throw out the unpopular and unfair "use it or lose it" rules

2002-Worked with IRS/ Treasury to assist small businesses in formulating pension and tax rules, including extending the deadline for every retirement plan in the country to be restated for the group of laws known collectively as "GUST". Worked with key members of Congress to draft Cafeteria Plan legislation which will allow more small businesses to sponsor Cafeteria Plans

2001-Successfully worked with members of Congress to enact "EGTRRA", the tax law to ease the estate tax burden on small businesses, improve retirement plans and increase IRA and retirement plan limits

2000-Successfully worked with IRS/Treasury to save the popular "cross-tested" ("new-comparability") retirement plans

1999-Facilitated 401(k) "safe harbors" to make 401(k) plans far more useful and simpler for privately owned businesses

1997-Leading proponent for the successful repeal of the 15% excise tax on large retirement plan distributions and the substantial increase in the estate tax dollar exemptions beginning in 1998 from $600,000 to $1,000,000

1996-Major architect of pension reform as well as legislation to reform estate taxes

1995-Derailed Big Government Health Care Proposal

1994-Defeated proposed repeal of cross tested and age-weighted retirement plans

1993-Successfully opposed proposal taxing capital gains at death

1992-Defeated attempt to reduce the federal estate exclusion from $600,000 to $200,000

1990-Won the repeal of Section 2036(c), which prohibited estate freezes

1989-Repealed the onerous Section 89 fringe benefit tax rules

1986-Successfully opposed negative changes for professional corporations and additional proposed burdens on small business retirement plans

1981-Helped create the $2,000 IRA

© SBCA 2006
Neither SBCA Inc., nor any individual member of this association assumes any liability for any action taken based on any articles contained herein.