Every once in awhile, I like to bring news to your attention to get you thinking. As Mitch Huhem said at the Yes! Energy Celebration – “You have to read to succeed!” Reading means knowing what is going on in your world and how that world might affect your business. Today, President Obama called upon Congress to help small businesses by giving them tax breaks and assist start-ups by making it easier for them to raise money.
According to the Associated Press, Obama said he would sign the legislation “right away.”
During a Cabinet meeting, he called on Congress to act on measures that would:
- Extend tax breaks.
- Make it easier for start-ups to raise money and go public.
- Permanently eliminate tax rates on capital gains for investments in small businesses.
- Add a one-year extension on the ability of all businesses to immediately deduct all of the costs of equipment and software purchases.
- Create a new 10 percent tax credit for small businesses that add jobs or increase wages in 2012. In addition, the legislation would make it easier for new startup companies to raise money and to go public.
- Expand a government small business investment program from $3 billion to $4 billion.
- Change the visa process to attract foreign-born entrepreneurs and high-skilled immigrants to invest in the United States or start new businesses.
“It is a symbol of how important it is for us to spur entrepreneurship, to help startups, to move aggressively so that we can assure more companies that create the most jobs in our economy are getting a leg up from various programs that we have in our government,” Obama said.
First, and most importantly, never put on the brakes waiting for what will or will not happen. The government isn’t running your business, YOU are. Don’t start polling yourself to death on the pros and cons of what they will or will not do an move forward in the way you think is best. There are plenty of naysayers out there who will look at the government, the economy, society, whatever and put a hold on their dreams until they know what these outside forces will do. DON’T BE ONE OF THEM. The future of your business is in your hands.
A good debate is a good debate, particularly when it affects you. As you move forward this year, filled with Yes! Energy and the desire to succeed, what will you do to determine your own destiny — aside from anything the government might be doing?
