Mark Schauer announces support for bill to streamline taxes for home-based businesses
U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer today announced his support of the Home Office Deduction Simplification Act, a bill to streamline taxes for small business owners who use a home office.
Schauer, D-Battle Creek, said the legislation would help each of Michigan’s 648,426 self-employed business owners save an additional $1,500 on their taxes next year and significantly minimize the paperwork and time spent on tax preparation. It would also require the amount of the standard deduction be indexed for inflation.
“My family owns a small business, so I understand how hard this economic crisis is hitting small businesses across the state,” Schauer said in a written statement. “Simplifying the home office deduction will allow entrepreneurs in Michigan to focus on expanding their business and creating jobs. This bipartisan legislation is an important step forward that will help turn our economy around.”
The legislation would allow business owners the option of a $1,500 standard deduction, but would not preclude taxpayers currently qualifying for the home office deduction from continuing to itemize their expenses should they choose.
Ryan J. Stanton covers government for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529.
Comments
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball
Mon, Jun 14, 2010 : 7:24 a.m.
Schauer has done little for the district. Basically, a rubber stamp for Pelosi and Obama care. These policies have led to loss of jobs and loss of confidence - end of story. 8 years of the Michigan Recession is enough for me.
BenWoodruff
Sat, Jun 12, 2010 : 10:33 p.m.
Diagenes, Oh how I long for the days of Democratic President Clinton, who created 22 million jobs, brought down unemployment to 4.0%, and left the Bush Administration and the GOP a budget surplus of $237 billion. They SQUANDERED the Clinton economy and left the mess we find ourselves in. You can't leave deficits, wars, huge unfunded mandates, and TARP and an economy that was the most fragile since the Great Depression for the next guy, and then blame him for a lack of results.
Diagenes
Thu, Jun 10, 2010 : 6:49 p.m.
Clownfish, according to the Bueau of Labor the average unemployment rate from 2001 thru 2008 was 5.26%.The better question is where are all the jobs President Obama promised? Oh thats right 400,000 census jobs were created. As well as a trillion dollar deficit.
clownfish
Thu, Jun 10, 2010 : 8:10 a.m.
Nice try Rep. Schauer. Good PR ploy in an election year. As long as Rep. Pelosi is Speaker of the House there will be no tax relief for small business. Or any one else that can create jobs and grow the economy. What is it like to be omniscient? Where are all the jobs that were to be created by the "Bush" tax cuts? Those massive cuts that were focused on the top earners helped increase our deficit (which suddenly is a concern to Pelosi Haters, but was off radar for 8 years, much like the off budget war spending). Cuts in taxes paid by small businesses were a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or "socialism run amok" as it has been called here. When the big company I worked for closed and I opened a tiny business, I was able to take advantage of the tax break for COBRA, bringing it into affordable range for 15 months. That is a large load off my mind. That tax "cut" was passed by "Speaker Pelosi" and will help me grow my business by allowing me to keep the extra money in my pocket. Also included in the ARRA was: $4.3 billion: Home energy credit to provide an expanded credit to homeowners who make their homes more energy-efficient in 2009 and 201-this helps grow small businesses that do such work. $1.7 billion: for deduction of sales tax from car purchases,-many dealerships are small businesses, increased sales resulted from this break. $15 billion: Allowing companies to use current losses to offset profits made in the previous five years, instead of two, making them eligible for tax refunds. $5 billion: Bonus depreciation which extends a provision allowing businesses buying equipment such as computers to speed up its depreciation through 2009 $24.7 billion to provide a 65 percent subsidy of health care insurance premiums for the unemployed under the COBRA program-as mentioned above, this helps those of us building our business. Is this all that could be done? No,far from it. I am no fan of Nancy Pelosi, but when will the fear mongering stop? Please!
Diagenes
Wed, Jun 9, 2010 : 9:02 p.m.
Nice try Rep. Schauer. Good PR ploy in an election year. As long as Rep. Pelosi is Speaker of the House there will be no tax relief for small business. Or any one else that can create jobs and grow the economy.
Ryan J. Stanton
Wed, Jun 9, 2010 : 3:32 p.m.
@rusty I can assure you I'm not interested in becoming a hack. In between a lot of duties I have here at AnnArbor.com, I have been hard at work behind the scenes for several weeks now on a series of election stories that are going to roll out soon that I think you'll enjoy. I encourage you to stay tuned. For better or worse, it is that time of year when politicians bombard the media with dozens and dozens of press releases. A small percentage of those do turn into blog posts like this in the interest of keeping the citizenry informed of what their elected leaders are working on.
John Galt
Wed, Jun 9, 2010 : 3:23 p.m.
A good idea. And I agree with the previous poster that the double taxation (i.e. a self-employed person pays the full 15.3% SS and medicare tax, as opposed to an employee paying 7.65% and an employer paying the other half, as is the case when you work for someone else) is a good idea. Look at the tax rate for a self employed person. For example: 15.3 percent (SS and Medeicatre) plus the state tax of 4.35 percent, plus the federal income tax (lets say the 25 percent bracket) means you pay 45% or more of your earnings in taxes. This does not include the fact that you must also cover your own medical insurance. No wonder there are little incentives to start a business.
rusty shackelford
Wed, Jun 9, 2010 : 2:54 p.m.
Ryan, I'm very disappointed that your new way of doing things is to simply reprint politicians' press releases as if they were hard news. You've gone from a promising young reporter (kind of) to a hack. If this is what annarbor.com makes you do, I suggest you get out now with your reputation intact.
Macabre Sunset
Wed, Jun 9, 2010 : 2:18 p.m.
How about just eliminating the double-taxation social security self-employment penalty instead? Much simpler and much more fair.