3 biggest challenges facing small business owners

Jan. 30--A Liberty Twp. resident and now trustee, who serves as board president of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said the three greatest challenges facing small business owners in 2016 are healthcare costs, taxes and regulations.

Steve Schramm, who recently sold his Forest Park-based business OK Interiors, has served on NFIB's board for the past five years, most recently as its chairman since January 2015. He was elected to the Liberty Twp. Board of Trustees in November.

The ability of many small businesses to cope with these challenges is limited, he said.

"That is why so many of us have joined the NFIB," Schramm said. "They are one of the few organizations that look out solely for the interests of the independent business community."

Schramm gives Journal-News readers his breakdown of the three big challenges:

HEALTHCARE COSTS

"They continue to rise faster than small business can keep up," Schramm said. "The ACA did nothing to stifle costs and if anything, things have gotten worse. Choices have diminished and small businesses are suffering from ill-equipped exchanges and no help to navigate new systems in the law. Furthermore, all the new taxes and mandates (employer mandate, individual mandate, HIT tax) have driven the costs up for everyone. There are few small business winners under this new healthcare law."

"NFIB wants cost addressed," he said. "The cost of health insurance has been the number one problem for small business for over two decades. They want a system that allows business owners flexible options to meet the needs of their workforce. Small business needs tools like HRAs, HSA, and other cost effective choices in order to maintain coverage or begin to offer coverage. State mandates and heavy-handed regulations are driving costs up, not down."

TAXES

"Small business continues to be the job creator," Schramm said. "Many if not most small businesses are organized as passthroughs, meaning they file at the individual rate. Taxes remain high for these businesses and in a political climate as we have today, we see them going up. Right now, there is a big gap in what corporate businesses pay and what small businesses pay. That should not be the case. Small business should have a level playing field with big business."

"NFIB wants rates reduced and the tax code simplified," he said. "This would help job growth and increase business viability. A majority of all small business must use a tax preparer because the code is simply just too difficult to understand. This adds a another layer of cost to their bottom line. Luckily Congress just passed expensing 179 permanency. Congress should not stop there. With a new administration coming in, Congress should focus on making taxes lower for small business. This should be a priority for the next president."

REGULATION

"The amount of red tape a small business has to go through to maintain a business continues to be a problem," Schramm said. "In countless surveys and studies, employers cite regulation as a major concern. With (the) Obama administration in place for eight years, thousands of new regulations have been added to the books. From Department of Labor to Environmental Protection Agency, things like the waters rule and carbon emissions requirements, stifle growth and harm business."

"NFIB wants Congress to rein in these regulations," he said. "NFIB wants to see a deadline put on any midnight regulations -- last minute regulations from current administrations -- coming this year. The agencies do not do their job in putting new proposed regulations through small business panels. These panels are intended to show the economic impact the regulations would have on a small business. Instead, they bypass this step, and ignore these concerns."

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