Small Business State Of The Union Scorecard

By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG

NEW YORK (AP) ⿿ President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday covered a lot of issues that are important to small business including the tax code, minimum wage, immigration and the difficulty some owners have finding workers with the right skills.

Here is a look at some of Obama's proposals, and how they could affect small business:

SIMPLIFIED TAX CODE FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Impact: Positive

Obama talked about creating a tax code that helps small businesses spend less time filing out complicated forms. It's really not the forms but the code itself that's the problem ⿿ small business owners have long complained about the complexity of federal tax laws and the time and money they have to spend to keep up with changes. A survey last year by the National Small Business Association found that more than half of small business owners ⿿ 56 percent ⿿ said administrative side of taxes was a bigger burden than actually paying taxes.

"The overhead on our ability to keep up with the tax code is super-challenging," said Ryan Howard, CEO of Practice Fusion, an electronic medical records company in San Francisco. He estimates that 5 percent of his expenses go toward dealing with taxes.

MINIMUM WAGE

Impact: Negative

Obama wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour from $7.25. While Obama noted that 19 states plus the District of Columbia have a higher minimum wage than the federal government, all the states except for Washington have a minimum wage below $9. Washington state's hourly minimum wage is $9.19.

"It will be a 28 percent increase in my payroll each year," said Sean Falk, who owns 12 franchises including Mrs. Fields cookies and brownies ⿿ and Pretzelmaker ⿿ shops in four states with minimum wages ranging from $7.25 to $7.85 an hour. Falk said an increase to $9 would force him to shutter his less profitable stores, and could keep him from opening more locations.

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