Many news outlets this week are speculating about how a Supreme Court decision to throw out the Affordable Care Act could affect election results. Regardless of how the Court's decision helps or hurts the incumbent or his GOP opponent, overturning Obamacare would be a disaster for small business, according to Frank Knapp, Jr., vice-chair of the American Sustainable Business Council.

Though it was the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) that took its case against the Affordable Care Act to the Supreme Court, the group did not speak for all business owners. The Small Business Majority, the Main Street Alliance, and the National Association for the Self Employed all disagree that the health care law should be overturned.Does Obamacare benefit small business?

In an essay that appeared yesterday on the congressional news site The Hill, Knapp, who is also president and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, piled on to the claim that NFIB's opposition to the Affordable Care Act does not

As small business owners know, chances of getting a bank loan these days are slim. Banks are rejecting as many as 90 percent of all small business applications. Is there a way to beat the odds? Lena Gjonaj says the best way to position yourself for financing is to avoid the mistake virtually all entrepreneurs make: starting a business with personal credit.

Everyone's heard a story of a successful startup that was financed with personal credit cards or a second mortgage. But today when those business owners want to expand, they can be in for a shock at the bank, says Gjonaj, a business funding consultant in Easton, Conn. Even if sales are rocketing, a business owner who hasn't taken the steps to establish business credit will likely find out that she's not in compliance with lender requirements.Loan officers look for proof of business credit

One bank Gjonaj spoke with recently had denied a loan to a company that had plenty of customers but hadn't documented a corporate credit profile. "They couldn't prove any good corporate

By Mike Periu

The American dream for many Latino families is to one day purchase or start a small business. They envision their children, nephews, nieces and other relatives joining the business and taking part in the family effort to succeed in the U.S. When the time comes, the greatest joy is to bequeath that business to the next generation.  It's a beautiful dream but one that often doesn't become reality. According to the Institute for Family-Owned Business, only 40% of family-owned businesses survive to the second generation; 12% make it to the third; and only 3% survive to the fourth generation. Very few entrepreneurs have the privilege of seeing their grandchildren take over the business they started.

(Photo: Istockphoto)
Does it have to be this way? Not necessarily.  Many times the issues that destroy a family-owned business aren't business related; they have to do with how relatives perceive one another and treat each other.  These human issues are within the control of the founders and they need

If yours is one of the 10 million small businesses that generated a share of the aggregate $194 billion in sales rung up online in 2011, you're likely aware that, new this year, the IRS requires merchant- and third-party-payment processors, such as PayPal and Square, to report on form 1099-K any income paid through their services to individuals and small businesses. And you might be interested in a report that appeared on TechCrunch yesterday under the headline, "New Government ePayment Regulation Costs Small Business $10 Billion."Complying with new e-commerce tax can be costly

As TechCrunch contributor Steven Aldrich explains it:

"The 1099-K form reports 'gross sales' made, without adjusting for items like fees, refunds, returns, or fraudulent transactions. … [B]usiness owners are saying that the gross sales number on the form is coming in much higher than they expected and is causing each business to spend significant time and money to get their taxes done correctly. …Without taking this new law into account, $140 billion and 3.5

Which small business group represents you on health care reform? The National Federation of Independent Business will present its case against the Affordable Care Act to the Supreme Court this week. But two other organizations, the Small Business Majority and the Main Street Alliance, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief defending ObamaCare. And a fourth group, the National Association for the Self-Employed, would like to see the Court strike down the part of the law  mandating that all individuals purchase health insurance, but opposes overturning the law altogether.

Small businesses are at odds about the Affordable Care ActAs business owners know well by now, the health reform law will legally obligate private, state, and local government employers with 50 or more full-time employees to provide "minimum essential coverage" and to pay for at least 60 percent of the actual costs of employees' benefits by 2014. Those employers who don't will be penalized $2,000 per employee beyond their first 30 employees, payable to the IRS. The mandate

Yahoo! SmallBizVote readers responded with overwhelming cynicism to a report we posted yesterday about an Executive Office memo to federal regulatory agencies. The guidance, issued on Tuesday by regulatory chief Cass Sunstein, instructed agencies to consider the special challenges that redundant, overlapping, and inconsistent regulations pose to small businesses and startups.

SmallBizVote readers say the memo is phony election-year pandering. In 14 comments and 71 "likes" (indicated by readers who gave a comment the "thumbs up" symbol), readers expressed their resounding distrust of the Administration's too-little-too-late guidance.Yahoo! readers say a government regulatory guidance is political pandering

"It takes election season for the White House to hear your cries," remarked a reader with the pseudonym He Lies.  Hope commented, "So the EPA regulations, Obamacare, and Dodd-Frank are job killers...duh!" And T-Rex wrote, "What a coincidence. Obama is suddenly worried about small businesses! Appears to be major league pandering in an election year."

Reader

Businesses that are seeing increased revenues during tough economic times have six things in common, according to a survey of nearly 1,100 business owners conducted by the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute.

"Growing revenues during the recession was no small feat. However, insights from the Institute's most recent Index provide a fresh understanding of how higher-growth small business owners achieved their success," said John Krubski, research advisor to the Institute, which is part of the Guardian Life Insurance Company. Businesses surveyed ranged from sole proprietors to those with more than 5,000 employees.

Based on comparisons between respondents who projected 2011 revenues higher than 2009 and 2010, and those who projected "about the same" or "declining" 2011 revenues versus the prior two years, Guardian recommends the following six steps small business owners can take to improve their revenues in the year ahead:

1. Be Prepared for Contingencies. Rather than react to

Small business owners struggling under the burden of regulatory compliance, take heart. In this election season, the White House hears your cries.

The Executive Office yesterday reminded the heads of federal departments and agencies that some "sectors and industries face a significant number of regulatory requirements, some of which may be redundant, inconsistent, or overlapping." A guidance "effective immediately" urged agencies to take into account the costs of cumulative regulations that "can create special challenges for small businesses and startups."Regs create "special challenges" for small businesses

Cass Sunstein, the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget, instructed agencies to "avoid unintentional burdens that could result from an exclusive focus on the most recent regulatory activities."

Sunstein's memo follows a meeting earlier this month between President Obama and the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of leading U.S. companies with combined