Posted by Molly Nelson - This morning, NASE Executive Director Kristie Arslan testified before the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship during their "progress report" hearing on the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010.
Credit - Sylvia Johnson Photography In her testimony, Arslan stressed that more Americans would be on the unemployment rolls if they weren't creating jobs for themselves by being self-employed, and that the jobs created by self-employed businesses are just as valuable and essential to our economy as office or factory jobs.
While lamenting that most legislation and public policy is geared toward corporate America, Arslan lauded the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 for including "key provisions that benefited the vast majority of micro-businesses and provided some much needed bottom-line tax savings to the self-employed."
One provision in the Small Business Jobs Act was the one-year tax deduction on health insurance costs for the self-employed. This issue has long been a legislative priority for the NASE, and Arslan called for making the deduction permanent (or at a minimum extending it for a two-year period) in order to level the playing field for the self-employed.
Read Arslan's full testimony here.