Self-Employed Tax Equity Bill Bows In Early
Mar 23rd, 2009 | By Dawn R. Rivers | Category: RegulationsAnother item from previous sessions of Congress that has returned for an encore is the Equity for Our Nation’s Self-Employed Act of 2009 (H.R. 1470), introduced by Congressmen Ron Kind (D-WI), Wally Herger (R-CA), Suzanne M. Kosmas (D-Fla.) and David G. Reichert (R-WA). The bill is another gem of bipartisan legislative simplicity, the bulk of which simply strike a single paragraph from the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, thus correcting the way the self-employed are not permitted to deduct their health insurance premiums as a regular business expense when calculating income that is subject to self-employment tax (the self-employed version of FICA taxes). That results in additional tax liabilities of as much as $1,852, according to the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE).
Since House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has turned his attention to health care reform, it seems a good time to address this relatively minor piece of that very large puzzle. Perhaps much more to the point is the state of the overall economy and how that has probably caused another huge spike in the number of nonemployer firms already, similar to the increase we saw during the 2002-2005 period. There is no reason to assume that the jobs generated by stimulus spending will be in the right places and in the right industries for all the accidental entrepreneurs setting up shop even as you read this. At the same time, when everything is said and done, there will be far too many nonemployer businesses to fit comfortably and silently between those cracks anymore.
