Joe Pitts Give Us "The Business" On HCR

(The acronymn stands for Health Care Reform).

Yes, he’s at it again (and where else but The Daily Caller from a few days ago – here)…

Every year millions of Americans risk their savings and work hard to start a small business. According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, about 1 in 10 adults are currently taking steps to create a business.

…

One provision in the new health care law will be yet another costly distraction for small business owners. In order to raise revenue to pay for the $1 trillion new health care program, the law includes a provision requiring businesses to file a 1099 form with the IRS for each supplier or service provider they pay more than $600 to in a year.

Tom Schell, a rare coin dealer in Lititz, said the provision will require him to file 4,000 1099 forms a year. He told the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era, “I probably would just get out of it if it actually came to that.”

With all due respect to Mr. Schell, somehow I don’t think a rare coin dealer is going to generate much employment for the immediate future.

However, concerning the main point about the 1099 forms, this New York Times story tells us the following…

The reporting provision at issue is Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which adds “amounts in consideration for property” to the types of payments over $600 for which a business must file an information return with the Internal Revenue Service. In addition, the provision also closes a loophole that made payments to corporations exempt from the filing requirement. Under the new law, a company will have to file a Form 1099 with the I.R.S. for every vendor from whom it buys more than $600 in goods.

The section was intended to be a fund-raiser for the rest of the health care bill; it was projected to deliver $19 billion over the course of 10 years by making it more difficult for businesses to keep income unreported. But business groups assailed the new provisions. “This is absolutely unmanageable,” said Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business, which is leading the effort to overturn the law. “It’s not just the amount of time and money businesses will have to spend, but all that goes with collecting this information. Who do you send it to? What do you do with employees who travel and are making purchases on the road?”

OK, so what do we do about the extra reporting, then? Well, the Times tells us further that…

In the Senate, the latest incarnation of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s small-business jobs bill, proposed late Thursday night, offers his colleagues a choice: they can vote on an amendment by Republican Mike Johanns of Nebraska to repeal the new requirement (to complete the extra 1099s), or they can vote for a Democratic alternative that scales it back. (Of course, individual senators could also vote to do both or to do neither.)

The Democrats’ measure would raise the threshold for reporting goods purchased to $5,000 from $600 and would exempt businesses with 25 or fewer employees from the requirement altogether. It also excludes purchases made by credit card, because these will be reported separately by credit card payment processors under a different law that takes effect in January. These revisions, according to a Finance Committee aide, would likely cost the Treasury $10.1 billion in lost revenue.

Both amendments, however, come with a poison pill that will be tough for members on the other side to swallow. The Johanns amendment is paid for with money from health care programs created by the reform law, while the Democratic proposal is offset by eliminating an income deduction for the five largest oil companies. With each side making offers the other cannot accept, it is difficult to predict where repeal will end up.

Again, it’s kind of startling to me that Pitts, as a member of Congress, somehow doesn’t know this.

And our author concludes with this…

It’s just been four months since President Obama signed the new health care law, and already Democratic leadership is conceding that portions of the bill will harm the economy. We cannot create a massive new government entitlement program without someone footing the bill.

Small businesses all over America have just been told that they will have to pay billions more in taxes to foot the bill for Obamacare. That’s money that might otherwise go to job creation. That’s just one reason why America isn’t creating more jobs.

In response, I would ask that you consider the following about how the new health care law is projected to reduce the deficit (here).

Also, Pitts really has no room to complain about the Dems supposedly harming small business considering some of his votes in this area. With that in mind, I give you the following (here)…

Small-business credit. Voting 241-182, the House authorized the Treasury to lend up to $30 billion to community and regional banks to leverage up to $300 billion in new credit for small businesses. As collateral, the Treasury would receive dividend-paying preferred stock redeemable within 10 years. Financial institutions with assets under $10 billion would be eligible for the program. The deficit-neutral bill (HR 5297) is now before the Senate.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Small-business investment. Voting 247-170, the House passed a deficit-neutral bill (HR 5486) that uses incentives such as nontaxation of capital gains and the waiver of certain Internal Revenue Service penalties to stimulate small-business growth. In part, the bill eliminates capital-gains taxes on the sale of certain small-business stock bought between March 15, 2010, and Jan. 1, 2012, increases deductions for start-up expenditures, and eases rules for deducting losses from investments in enterprises such as farming and energy exploration. The bill is now before the Senate.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.

Voting no: Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

But wait! There’s more (here)…

Jobless, business benefits. Voting 215-204, the House passed a nearly $100 billion bill (HR 4213) that would extend jobless checks for the long-term unemployed through November and renew an array of tax breaks - such as the research-and-development credit - that benefit businesses.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.

Voting no: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

Want still more? Check this out (here)…

Summer jobs, disaster aid. Voting 239-175, the House sent the Senate a deficit-spending bill (HR 4899) to provide $600 million for summer jobs for youths and $5.1 billion for federal disaster relief. The bill defines the disaster aid as emergency spending and thus exempt from the "pay as you go" law. The bill extends until May a provision of last year's economic stimulus allowing the Small Business Administration to guarantee up to 90 percent of certain loans to companies.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.

Voting no: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

Jobs bill. Voting 246-178, the House passed a deficit-neutral bill (HR 4849) providing tax breaks to spur investment in small businesses and public-works construction by states and cities. The $18 billion-plus cost would be offset by other changes in the tax code. Under the bill, those who make certain small-business investments before Dec. 31 would receive a 100 percent exemption from capital-gains taxes on stock held for at least five years.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.

Voting no: Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

Had enough yet? No? Here is more…

Jobs creation. Voting 217-201, the House passed a jobs bill (HR 2847) that would temporarily exempt businesses from having to pay the 6.2 percent employer's share of Social Security withholding taxes on workers they hire this year from the jobless ranks. Employers also would receive a $1,000 tax credit for each new hire who stays on the job for one year. The two incentives are designed to put 300,000 people back to work at a cost to the Treasury of about $13 billion.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Allyson Schwartz didn’t vote.

To be fair, though, I should note a very rare Pitts “Yes” vote concerning small business here (maybe he was ill or something)…

Small-business financing. Voting 410-4, the House passed a bill (HR 4508) to extend several Small Business Administration loan and grant programs while awaiting Senate action on a House-passed bill to upgrade and reauthorize those programs.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

But Pitts returned to form once more here (I could go on, but you get the picture)…

Estate taxes. Voting 225-200, the House passed a bill (HR 4154) to permanently extend the estate tax at a top rate of 45 percent and with provisions to limit it to individual estates above $3.5 million and joint estates above $7 million. Initially, the bill would exclude more than 99 percent of estates from taxation, including nearly all family-owned small businesses and farms. But that figure would gradually diminish because the exemption levels are not indexed for inflation. The bill's cost of nearly $237 billion over 10 years would be added to the national debt.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Oh, and here is something else to consider when it comes to the Repugs supposedly supporting small business.

As you might expect, this is where I usually finish off one of these posts telling voters in PA-16 to oppose Pitts for election in the fall and provide a link to the web site of Lois Herr, his highly worthy Democratic opponent.

So here it is.