Seventeen Small Business Tax Cuts and Counting

Posted by Kori Schulman on February 25, 2011 at 08:16 PM EST

Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy. President Obama's focus on strengthening small business has included reaching out to entrepreneurs and small business owners, asking them what's working and what needs to work better. Through Advise the Advisor, and this week's Winning the Future Small Business Forum in Ohio, the President has heard from thousands of Americans.

One of the questions we've seen is about what the Obama Administration has done to cut taxes for small businesses. On Twitter, lindismith asked @whitehouse, "What are the 17 new tax cuts for small businesses Obama signed into law?" Well, we took that question to some of the President's top economic advisers, and here's what they had to say.

Since coming into office in January of 2009, President Obama has signed legislation that created or extended 17 small business tax cuts and credits. Several of those cuts were in three key pieces of legislation: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Affordable Care Act, and the HIRE Act. All told, these three laws contain eight different small business tax cuts, including the exclusion of up to 75% capital gains on key small business investments, a tax credit for the cost of health insurance for small business employees, and new tax credits for hiring Americans who had been out of work for at least two months.

The Small Business Jobs Act, signed by President Obama in September of 2010, had another eight tax cuts and credits in it. These included raising the small business expensing limit to $500,000, the highest ever; simplifying the rules for claiming a deduction for business cell phone use; creating a new deduction for health care costs for the self-employed; allowing greater deductions for start-up expenses for entrepreneurs, and eliminating taxes on all capital gains from key small business investments.

In December of 2010, President Obama also signed a tax bill that went one step further and allowed all businesses -- large and small -- to expense 100 percent of their new investments until the end of 2011. It also extended the elimination of capital gains taxes for small business investments through the end of 2012 -- and the President's budget has proposed to make that tax cut permanent.

Providing small businesses with tax cuts to help them grow and hire new works is just one of the ways  President Obama has committed his Administration to working with small business to win the future. From mom-and-pop hardware stores to start-ups on the cutting edge of technology and innovation, investing in American small business means investing in American communities and the American people.

Here's the list of 17 small business tax cuts that President Obama has signed into law --

From the Recovery Act, HIRE Acts, and Affordable Care Act:

1. A New Small Business Health Care Tax Credit

2. A New Tax Credit for Hiring Unemployed Workers

3. Bonus Depreciation Tax Incentives to Support New Investment

4. 75% Exclusion of Small Business Capital Gains

5. Expansion of Limits on Small Business Expensing

6. Five-Year Carryback of Net Operating Losses

7. Reduction of the Built-In Gains Holding Period for Small Businesses from 10 to 7 Years to Allow Small Business Greater Flexibility in Their Investments   

8. Temporary Small Business Estimated Tax Payment Relief to Allow Small Businesses to Keep Needed Cash on Hand

From the Small Business Jobs Act:

9. Zero Capital Gains Taxes on Key Investments in Small Businesses

10. The Highest Small Business Expensing Limit Ever– Up to $500,000

11. An Extension of 50% Bonus Depreciation

12. A New Deduction for  Health Care Expenses for the Self-Employed

13. Tax Relief and Simplification for Cell Phone Deductions

14. An Increase in The Deduction for Entrepreneurs’ Start-Up Expenses

15. A Five-Year Carryback Of General Business Credits

16. Limitations on Penalties for Errors in Tax Reporting That Disproportionately Affect Small Business

And from the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act:

17. 100 Percent Expensing