Often, struggling entrepreneurs are forced to rely on their personal credit cards to finance their enterprises, and provisions that would force them into Chapter 13 payment plans instead of Chapter 7, where most debts are wiped out, may make it more difficult for these folks to get back on their feet and try again after a failure. Kerry offered an amendment on the Senate floor to drop the small-business subtitle from the bill, but that was rejected, obtaining no Republican support. Bond succeeded in obtaining passage of several softening amendments, but is said to be less than completely happy with the bill. Most major business groups, including the National Federation of Independent Business and National Small Business United, support the bill and opposed the Kerry amendment. While the language could have been tuned up . . .
Small businesses depend on that money.
Charles L. Kolbe, chairman of Red Oak Farms, an Iowa beef producer and marketer, remarked last week at the first public meeting of the IRS panel that when he came on board, he assumed that he was a little guy paying his taxes while his big competitors, with their accountants and lawyers, were escaping the tax burden. Pretty lucrative, according to President Bush and the Treasury Department. On March 16, the president said Treasury data show that 17.4 million small-business owners and entrepreneurs would benefit from his proposal to cut the top marginal income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent. AGI is adjusted gross income before deductions and is typically much higher than taxable income. One interesting thing the numbers did show is that the District remains something less than a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity.