One of a number of bills that would potentially benefit small businesses is now floating around Congress in the form of HR 1509, which, if enacted, would allow self-employed home-based business owners to take a standard deduction of $1,500 instead of itemizing home office expenses on their federal income taxes. Or owners may continue to itemize their expenses, if they prefer to do so. The bill, introduced in March of this year, is currently stalled in committee (or Congressional purgatory, however you prefer).
Nevertheless, it’s worth keeping an eye on, which you can do here, along with other legislation that may be potentially beneficial to small businesses. One other notable piece of legislation that I had previously written about here was the increased start-up tax deduction, from $5,000 to $20,000. It looks to have met a similar stuck-in-committee fate, at least for the time being. Normally I wouldn’t be too excited to write about legislation still stuck in committee, but the Portland Business Journal today wrote this article about HR 1509, so perhaps they’re onto something. In any case, if I hear any developments about these, or other similar pieces of legislation beneficial to small businesses, I’ll try and put together a post about them.
I didn’t know this, but glad I found it… I really wasn’t looking forward to itemizing and all that. I also didn’t know about the start-up deduction. Good stuff, but I hope things “un-stall”..
Keep it up, I just became a subscriber…
Thanks Justin, glad to hear that the post helped you out.