Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act 2015[PATH]/ Affordable Care Act ACA

The Senate and The House have passed and the President has signed PATH. While there are a lot of important provisions for small business in this bill, the two most important are making the 179 permanent and the R&D credit permanent.  Todd McCracken, President of the National Small Business Association said last week “There is no single item in the tax code more critical to incentivizing small business investment than Section 179 expensing.” He goes on to say “the most commonly used small business tax deduction or credit is Section 179 Expensing  and one in ten small firms utilize the R&D.”

For those of you not aware of Section 179 it allows up to $500,000 for write offs on investments in new  and used equipment and off the shelf software. Had not been signed, the $500,000 limit would have been reduced to $25,000.

For those of you that provide health insurance to your employees, I would guess you don’t provide it to your employees dependents. If you make it available to your employees but do not pay for it you may be creating a problem for the employees dependents because they will not be able to take advantage of any subsidies in the Exchange. This is called the family glitch and is part of the ACA.  There are efforts in Washington to change this and Small Business California will be working to change this over the next year.

Enjoy your Holidays and we want to wish all of you a great and healthy New Year.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188