Small Business

A small businessman since he was 16, Mark will work to expand opportunities for small businesses in Alaska. As mayor, Mark Begich helped small businesses by eliminating the need for 11,000 small businesses to file business personal property tax forms in Anchorage. He implemented investment-friendly policies that helped create a building boom in Anchorage and steady economic growth and job growth. Mark knows Alaska’s small businesses are the backbone of a prosperous Alaska economy. His wife Deborah built a 30-employee business out of a small salmon stand in downtown Anchorage. Mark understands small businesses are not just small-sized big businesses, but face unique challenges and hurdles to being successful. He understands the strong individual responsibility and pride Alaska small business owners take in their success. Mark will build on his Anchorage record in the U.S Senate, where he will be one of only a few small businesses owners with hand-on business experience in Congress.

Support Small Businesses Providing Employee Healthcare

Small businesses are the engine of our economy but many have to choose between offering their employees health care and closing their businesses. Less than half of small business can afford to offer health care to their employees. In the U.S. Senate, Mark will:

• Help Every Small Business Provide Health Care. Mark supports proposals to allow small businesses buy into an insurance program that mirrors the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) based on a shared financial responsibility between the employee, the business and the government.
• Reduce Health Care Costs for Small Business. Mark supports incentive programs for states to create pooling opportunities for small businesses and non-profits, and federal reinsurance to help offset catastrophic expenditures.

Help Alaska Small Business Cut Energy Costs & Cost Save Money

Like all Alaskans, small businesses are being hit hard right now by skyrocketing energy and gas prices. As Mark has traveled throughout Alaska he has heard first-hand how small businesses are struggling to keep up with the rising prices and receive little to no support to implement energy saving practices. As Senator Mark will:

• Support Federal Loans for Energy Conversions: Alaska businesses need to be ready for the Alaska North Slope natural gas pipeline, which will bring stable supplies of affordable natural gas to Fairbanks and Southcentral Alaska. Mark will push for a federal loan program to aid businesses that want to convert to new fuel-efficient systems to maximize the benefits of Alaska natural gas.
• Support Clean Energy Manufacturing. Mark will support expansion of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program to include grants to small manufacturing firms to identify and implement new clean energy manufacturing technologies.
• Cut Small Business Energy Costs. Mark will call for new loan programs that help small businesses reduce energy costs through energy efficient technologies and switch to renewable energy and fuel sources.

Lower, Simpler Taxes for Small Business

The current 1.4 million-word tax code is unclear and overwhelming for many small businesses. It also is unfairly biased toward corporations, offering many tax loopholes and more favorable corporate rates. Mark Begich understands that tax simplification and tax relief for small businesses are critical to small business growth in America. As U.S. Senator, Mark will:

• Simplify Tax Returns for Small Business. Mark and his wife Deborah know first-hand how time consuming it is for small business owners to file their taxes. Mark supports simplifying the tax code for small businesses so they can focus on making their business a success instead of wading through the federal tax code. He supports simplified record-keeping and simpler expensing for basic small business costs such as automobile and cell phone usage.
• Provide Relief For 43,400 Alaskans From The “Stealth Tax.” The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), or “stealth tax” was originally created in 1969 to make sure that the 155 wealthiest Americans could not avoid taxation. Because this stealth tax was not inflation-proofed, it will mean higher taxes for approximately 43,400 Alaskans next year, including many small business owners. Mark Begich supports permanent relief for middle-class Alaskans from the stealth tax.
• Critical Tax Relief for Small Businesses. Mark supports extending the restaurant leasehold property improvement tax incentives beyond the 2009 expiration and permanent increases in business expensing limits set to expire in 2010.

Encourage New Investment and Entrepreneurs

Small businesses are facing great uncertainty due to the financial crisis the country faces today. It is critical for Congress to not let the problems of Wall Street trickle down to Main Street small business owners. Having done it many times himself, Mark also understands it is not easy getting a new business off the ground. Helping existing small businesses expand and encouraging new entrepreneurs will keep Alaska’s economy growing. As U.S. Senator, Mark will:

• Expand the Small Business Enterprise Credit. The median start-up costs for a new business ranges from $6,000 to $20,000, putting new entrepreneurs at significant financial risk. Mark supports increasing the allowable deduction for small business start-up costs from $5,000 to $10,000.
• Increase Credit Available to Small Businesses. The financial crisis has tightened an already restricted credit market with more than 65 percent of U.S. banks tightening their lending standards for small business loans. Mark supports immediate new funding of $200 million to support $16 billion in reduced-fee loans to small businesses to ensure they can continue to grow and create new jobs. Mark also supports an additional $1 million in funding to support $10 million in new microloans for small businesses and $4 million in technical assistance to help very small businesses.
• Create a Standard Home Office Deduction Option. The current home office deduction is too complex and time-consuming, so much so that less than one-third of home-based small businesses even bother to take the deduction. Mark supports giving small business owners the option of taking a standard home office deduction equal to the lesser of $2,500 or the annual gross income from the taxpayer’s home business.
• Allow first-year capital cost recovery for small and medium start-up manufacturers. Allow start-up small and medium-sized manufacturers to depreciate 100% of the cost of capital equipment purchased for the manufacturing process in the first year instead of depreciating it over a period of years.
• Supporting the Small Business Administration. The Small Business Administration’s budget has been woefully underfunded in the Bush Administration. In Alaska, this has meant significant understaffing that limits SBA’s ability to support Alaska small business owners. Mark supports Senate efforts to increase the SBA budget by over $100 million, including increased funding for Small Business Development Centers, Women’s Business Centers and veterans outreach programs.
• Protect the SBA 8(a) Program for Alaska Native Corporations: The Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program is a rare Federal economic development program that works for Alaska Native Corporations and communities. Mark will work to ensure that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle understand the value of this program and protect it.

Building a Stable Workforce

When an employee at a small business gets sick or their children and parents need care, the whole company feels it. As a small business man himself, Mark Begich understands that small businesses thrive when they have reliable workers. That requires support for workers when family issues and challenges arise. To help small business and their employees, Mark will:

• Help Alaskans Afford Child Care. For many Alaska families with children, child care can cost as much as college. Mark Begich wants to double the current $6,000 Dependent Care Credit to help cover child care expenses for Alaska families.
• Help Alaskans Care for Their Aging Parents. Mark Begich wants to help the growing number of Alaskan families who are in the “sandwich generation”—raising children and caring for aging parents. Mark Begich wants to expand the Dependent Care Credit to include care-giving expenses paid on behalf of an elderly parent.