Prosperity on Main Street: Keeping Taxes Low for Small Businesses (joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship and the House Committee on Small Business, April 8, 2025)
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The printed record of a joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship and the House Committee on Small Business, Small Business Committee Document Number 119–008, titled Prosperity on Main Street: Keeping Taxes Low for Small Businesses, held April 8, 2025 in the 119th Congress. Opening statements come from Hon. Roger Williams, Hon. Joni Ernst, Hon. Nydia Velázquez and Hon. Ed Markey. The four witnesses are Tom Click of Patriot Industries, Preston Brashers of The Heritage Foundation, Jerry Akers of Sharpness Inc. and MOCA Inc., and Anna Zimmerman of Zimmerman & Co CPAs Inc. The appendix lists their prepared statements, questions from Hon. Cantwell to Click, Brashers and Akers with their answers, and additional material for the record including the American Council of Engineering Companies and American University.
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“Prosperity on Main Street: Keeping Taxes Low for Small Businesses (joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship and the House Committee on Small Business, April 8, 2025).”
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PROSPERITY ON MAIN STREET: KEEPING TAXES
LOW FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SENATE COMMITTEE ON SMALL
BUSINESS & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
HEARING HELD
APRIL 8, 2025
Small Business Committee Document Number 119–008
Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60–081 WASHINGTON : 2025
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas, Chairman
PETE STAUBER, Minnesota
DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
MARK ALFORD, Missouri
NICK LALOTA, New York
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota
TONY WIED, Wisconsin
ROB BRESNAHAN, Pennsylvania
BRIAN JACK, Georgia
TROY DOWNING, Montana
KIMBERLYN KING-HINDS, Northern Marina Islands
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, New York, Ranking Member
MORGAN MCGARVEY, Kentucky
HILLARY SCHOLTEN, Michigan
LAMONICA MCIVER, New Jersey
GIL CISNEROS, California
KELLY MORRISON, Minnesota
GEORGE LATIMER, New York
DEREK TRAN, California
LATEEFAH SIMON, California
JOHNNY OLSZEWSKI, Maryland
HERB CONAWAY, New Jersey
MAGGIE GOODLANDER, New Hampshire
LAUREN HOLMES, Majority Staff Director
MELISSA JUNG, Minority Staff Director
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CONTENTS
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Roger Williams ................................................................................................ 1
Hon. Joni Ernst ........................................................................................................ 2
Hon. Nydia Velázquez ............................................................................................. 4
Hon. Ed Markey ....................................................................................................... 5
WITNESSES
Mr. Tom Click, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Founder, Patriot
Industries, Louisa, VA ......................................................................................... 8
Mr. Preston Brashers, Research Fellow, Tax Policy, The Heritage Foundation,
Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 10
Mr. Jerry Akers, President, Sharpness Inc. and MOCA Inc., Palo, IA ............... 11
Ms. Anna Zimmerman, Founder & Owner, Zimmerman & Co CPAs Inc.,
Cincinnati, OH ..................................................................................................... 13
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Mr. Tom Click, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Founder, Pa-
triot Industries, Louisa, VA ......................................................................... 53
Mr. Preston Brashers, Research Fellow, Tax Policy, The Heritage Foun-
dation, Washington, DC ............................................................................... 56
Mr. Jerry Akers, President, Sharpness Inc. and MOCA Inc., Palo, IA ........ 63
Ms. Anna Zimmerman, Founder & Owner, Zimmerman & Co CPAs Inc.,
Cincinnati, OH .............................................................................................. 71
Questions and Answers for the Record:
Questions from Hon. Cantwell to Mr. Click and Answers from Mr. Click .. 81
Questions from Hon. Cantwell to Mr. Brashers and Answers from Mr.
Brashers ......................................................................................................... 83
Questions from Hon. Cantwell to Mr. Akers and Answers from Mr. Akers 87
Additional Material for the Record:
American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) .................................. 89
American University ........................................................................................ 91
Anonymous letter ............................................................................................. 98
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) ................................................... 99
Atlantic letter .................................................................................................... 101
Biotechnology Innovation Organization .......................................................... 107
Engine ............................................................................................................... 109
Fortune .............................................................................................................. 113
Innovator Alliance ............................................................................................ 114
IntervalZero ...................................................................................................... 118
National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) ..................................... 123
National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) ........................................ 126
Small Business Majority .................................................................................. 130
Small Software Business Alliance (SSBA) ..................................................... 136
Technology Councils of North America (TECNA) .......................................... 142
U.S. Chamber of Commerce ............................................................................. 147
U.S. Chamber of Commerce - A Matter of Survival ...................................... 151
Vertex Pharmaceuticals ................................................................................... 168
WMUR TV letter .............................................................................................. 169
YahooFinance JP Morgan ................................................................................ 171
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HOUSE-SENATE JOINT HEARING
PROSPERITY ON MAIN STREET: KEEPING
TAXES LOW FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2025
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS,
and
UNITED STATES SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS &
ENTREPRENEURSHIP,
Washington, DC.
The Joint Committees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
Room 210, U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Roger Williams [chair-
man of the Committee on Small Business] presiding.
Present: Representatives Williams, Stauber, Meuser, Van Duyne,
Ellzey, Alford, Wied, Downing, Schmidt, Velázquez, McGarvey,
Scholten, McIver, Cisneros, Morrison, Latimer, Tran, Simon,
Olszewski, Conaway, and Goodlander.
Senators Ernst, Young, Hawley, Husted, Markey, Booker, Jus-
tice, and Hirono.
Chairman WILLIAMS. I would like to say good morning to ev-
eryone. And as we get started with it, I will lead us in prayer and
then Senator Ernst will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, so can
you stand, please? Bow your heads.
Heavenly Father, God of all people, thank you for allowing us to
meet today and discuss great things in this country and to do as
good a job as we can do under your leadership.
We appreciate the opportunity to serve you and to serve this
great institution. In your name we pray, Amen.
Senator ERNST. Please remain standing and recite the pledge.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, in-
divisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Good morning, everyone, and I ask unani-
mous consent to hold today’s joint hearing before the House Com-
mittee on Small Business and the Senate Committee on Small
Business and Entrepreneurship. Without objection, so moved. I
now call the joint hearing before the House and Senate Committees
on Small Business to order. Without objection, the Chair is author-
ized to declare a recess of the committee at any time.
I now recognize myself for my opening statement. I want to
thank our witnesses for being here today. Many of you have trav-
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eled a long way to share your experiences and perspectives and we
deeply value your time and your voice.
Additionally, I would like to take a moment to welcome our col-
leagues from the Senate. Both chambers of Congress coming to-
gether to conduct this joint hearing underscores the importance of
today’s topic. Keeping taxes low for small businesses. Extending
small business tax cuts will drive growth on Main Street America.
Today’s hearing will focus on the importance of making the Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 permanent to continue to enable main
street to thrive by providing much-needed tax breaks to small busi-
nesses.
As the nation continues to recover from the Biden administra-
tion’s disastrous economic policies, this hearing could not come at
a more important time. Small businesses are the engine of the
American economy. In order to excel, they need to be able to put
their hard-earned money back into their businesses instead of fork-
ing it over to the federal government. This is especially true when
those tax dollars fund and anti-small business government like
that of Joe Biden over and over again. This committee had heard
how the Biden administration’s policies have negatively impacted
main street.
Last Congress, a small oil and gas operator testified that the
Biden administration was trying to ruin their industry financially.
Can you imagine that? Your tax dollars going towards the salaries
of bureaucrats only for them to tell you that they want you to lose
your life’s work.
For the sake of small business owners and entrepreneurs across
the nation, we re-elected President Trump. Under his leadership
Main Street America is more hopeful than ever and President
Trump’s 2017 TCJA was the most significant tax system overhaul
since 1986,
These tax cuts brought rapid growth in job creation, U.S. GDP,
and domestic investment. Many of the tax cuts in the TCJA are set
to expire at the end of this year. This would devastate small busi-
ness and the U.S. economy at large.
Making the provisions that benefit small businesses permanent
is critical in sustaining economic growth and fostering an environ-
ment where small businesses can succeed.
Just last week, a small business owner testified before the House
committee that the TCJA saves his business $11,000 last year al-
lowing him to reinvest those funds back into his business. This is
just one example of why we need to extend President Trump’s 2017
tax cuts. Small businesses should enjoy a tax system that encour-
ages their success. In turn, we will see the job creation, innovation,
and economic growth and when Main Street America succeeds, the
American economy succeeds.
With that, I now recognize Chair Ernst for her opening remarks.
Senator ERNST. Thank you, good morning, and thank you
Chairman Williams, and I appreciate your friendship and our abil-
ity to work together on behalf of America’s small business.
I am glad that we can hold this joint hearing of our two commit-
tees today to examine an issue that impacts every small business
in America. Eight years ago, working alongside President Trump,
Congress passed the most significant simplification of our tax code
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in decades, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, otherwise known
as the TCJA.
The TCJA provided relief to every American, simplifying and re-
ducing personal income tax and expanding important deductions
used by small businesses across the country. These changes have
allowed small businesses to thrive and contributed to the incredible
growth we saw under President Trumps’ first term, which led to
strong real wage growth for workers the lowest unemployment rate
in 50 years, and annual GDP growth that reached 3 percent.
These tax provisions have also allowed small business owners,
including our witnesses today, to grow their businesses and rein-
vest in their communities and their employees.
But the reality is these gains are in jeopardy if Congress allows
the TCJA to expire, and Americans would suffer the largest tax in-
crease in history. Small business owners will be hit particularly
hard if the TCJA expires as over 96 percent of small businesses are
structured as pass-through entities that benefit from the qualified
business income deduction and the general reductions in personal
income rates.
The TCJA empowered small business owners to invest in them-
selves through provisions like bonus depreciation, enhanced busi-
ness expensing, and the R&D deduction. More importantly, the
TCJA enabled small businesses to invest more in their employees.
I have heard from small business owners all over Iowa who use
that extra money to provide their workers with health insurance,
parental leave, and retirement plans. I have also talked to small
business owners who hired staff and expanded, but who would
have to make hard decisions about who to keep if these cuts were
to expire.
When I talk to Iowans back home the message is clear. They
can’t handle a tax hike. Workers are also concerned that if employ-
ees have to give more of their revenue to Washington, jobs and
benefits will have to be cut, on top of the higher taxes they will
have to pay due to the individual rate hikes. The consequences are
real to workers and their families.
I also want to address a tax policy issue of particular concern to
Iowans. The TCJA reduced the death tax, giving families the abil-
ity to keep their farms and businesses after a loved one’s passing.
This change was particularly important in my state, preventing
families from being forced to sell off farms or businesses that had
been theirs for generations.
The bottom line is that America’s small businesses need the
TCJA along with the certainty it provides. If we let the TCJA ex-
pire now, Americans and small business owners will be forced to
shoulder another $4 trillion in new taxes.
When small businesses grow, the American economy grows. I
strongly support making the TCJA permanent and will fight to en-
sure that the interests of small businesses continue to be a priority
in this Congress.
I would like to thank our witnesses for being here today and I
look forward to your testimony.
I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
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And I now recognize the Ranking Member and my friend
Velázquez for her opening remarks.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Throughout the past 40 years our tax code has been repeatedly
adjusted to favor the wealthy and the largest corporations, fun-
neling wealth upward and hollowing the system that built the larg-
est middle class in world history. This time is no different.
Americans largely feel that the tax code is built in favor of the
wealthy. According to a recent survey, 90 percent of small busi-
nesses agree in the belief that the tax system favors large corpora-
tions. Now, Republicans and the Trump administration are trick-
ling down. Not only are they proposing to permanently entrench
the inequality of the TCJA into our tax code, but the president just
last week unilaterally enacted one of the largest middle class tax
hikes in history. This will have devastating effects on the economy,
particularly for small firms who operate on thin margins and don’t
have sophisticated supply chain management skills to navigate
these complex and onerous tariffs.
These tariffs will raise prices in the midst of a cost of living cri-
sis, lower growth, and cause layoffs and business closures across
the economy. When President Biden left office the U.S. economy
was in a Goldilocks zone, low unemployment, falling inflation, fall-
ing interest rates, record business creating, and stocks at all-time
highs.
Many of the investments we make in infrastructure, clean en-
ergy, and reshoring domestic manufacturing were just beginning to
work their way through the economy. It was the envy of the world.
Yet, in less than 3 months, President Trump has squandered
that progress. In the first quarter, American stocks posted their
worst performance relative to the rest of the world in 23 years.
Banks and analysts are unanimously warning of a recession in the
next year while inflation is already jumping and interest rate cuts
are paused. This is President Trump’s economy.
In a time when our nation suffers extreme levels of income and
wealth inequality, the Republican plan is to continue to shift the
tax burden onto the working class while lavishly cutting taxes for
the top 1 percent and adding to the deficit.
But what about fiscal responsibility and cutting the deficit? De-
spite projections that extending the TCJA over the next decade will
cost up to $4 trillion, they are using budget gimmicks to say that
it costs nothing.
According to one of my Republican colleagues, this is fairy dust.
I agree. Instead of cutting taxes for small firms and working fami-
lies, they are proposing to cut vital resources for the most dis-
advantaged people. From $880 billion in cuts to the Medicaid pro-
gram, which provides health care to our nation’s poor, to hundreds
of billions of dollars in cuts to nutrition assistance programs that
help families put food on the table.
To the extent that they have tax cuts for the working class and
seniors, through no tax on tips, overtime, and Social Security, I ask
what good is no tax on tips if restaurant margins are erased by tar-
iffs and they are forced to close? What good is erasing taxes on So-
cial Security if the administration is rendered incapable of distrib-
uting benefits?
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The Republican budget and the economic policies of President
Trump are a disaster for our country. These policies are the exact
opposite of what we need right now. They will raise costs signifi-
cantly for the working class and cause main street businesses to
lay off staff or close altogether.
They are spiraling our economy into recession as we speak. We
can still work together to deliver genuine relief for main street. We
could extend the enhanced premium tax credits to keep healthcare
costs from spiking for small businesses next year. We could expand
tax credit for childcare, which will grow the workforce and keep
small businesses competitive.
We could reform 199(a) and ensure the bulk of benefits go to
those who need it the most.
We have a duty to reject policies that deepen inequality and un-
dermine the future of small businesses and working families. To-
day’s hearing is an opportunity to clearly confront those dangerous
choices, stand up for small businesses and fight for an economy
that works for everyone, not just those at the very top.
My colleagues could stop this carnage at any time. I call on them
to reclaim tariff powers along with the power of the purse and re-
turn them to Congress and work with Democrats on delivering gen-
uine tax relief for the middle class in a fiscally responsible way.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The lady yields back.
And I now recognize Ranking Member Markey for his opening re-
marks.
Senator MARKEY. Yes, thank you, Chairman Williams.
Less than 100 days in, this administration has only delivered
pain for main street across America. Since Trump’s tariff an-
nouncement last week, the stock market has lost trillions of dollars
and analysts and JPMorgan say it is likely the United States will
enter a recession this year.
The Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that going
through a recession would be, quote, ‘‘ worth it.’’ Small Business
Administrator Loeffler called Trump’s tariffs, ‘‘salvation’’—for small
businesses.
Donald Trump posted on Truth Social over the weekend that big
business is not worried about tariffs. Meanwhile, small businesses
are calling Trump’s tariffs salt in the wound that is just now begin-
ning to heal.
As a result of these tariffs, small businesses like Clem’s General
Store in Spencer, Massachusetts, is having to consider hiring
freezes or scaling back the store’s selections. These reckless tariffs
and the impending retaliation will ruin many small businesses.
97 percent of exporters and importers in the United States are
small or medium-sized businesses. They do not have the ability to
absorb the increased supply chain costs leading to thinner profit
margins, forced closures, mass layoffs, and increased costs for cus-
tomers.
Small businesses are having Pepto Bismol moments in the mar-
ketplace. They are just holding their stomachs every single day as
they see all of this turmoil and uncertainty be introduced into a
marketplace.
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And it is estimated that American households will pay an addi-
tional $3,400 in costs. Small businesses in their communities can-
not afford this. And it is clear who this administration serves, and
it is not small businesses or working people.
The budget resolution passed by the Senate this weekend lays
out a plan that would send trillions more in tax breaks to big cor-
porations and the wealthiest in our society, all at the expense of
essential programs like Medicaid and SNAP and investments in
NIH to find the cure for Alzheimer’s and cancer and diabetes, but
that millions of hardworking Americans are looking to protect their
families. And that is unacceptable.
The wealthy do not need another tax giveaway. The top 1 percent
of the wealthiest households hold one-third of all of the wealth in
this country. The three wealthiest men in America, who sat right
behind Donald Trump at the Inauguration, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos,
and Mark Zuckerberg, their net worth of those three people is
equal to the bottom 50 percent of our entire population combined.
And they are going to get massive tax breaks under this legisla-
tion? That is just crazy.
These three people are absolutely not deserving of another tax
break. And that is what the Republicans are doing. Their proposed
tax policies would supercharge wealth inequality in our society.
Even the Republican’s so-called small business tax deduction,
Section 199(a), does not primarily help true small businesses. In-
stead, the vast majority of these tax breaks of what government
would spend on this deduction goes to the highest earners.
I would support a provision if it was tailored to true small busi-
nesses. In fact, according to a 2023 report by the nonpartisan Joint
Committee on Taxation, 55 percent of the Section 199(a) benefits
go to the top 1 percentile in our country. Those aren’t small busi-
ness people. The upper 1 percentile are not by definition small
businesses. They get 55 percent of the tax break in, quote/unquote,
‘‘ the small business tax break’’ that the Republicans want to put
extended into this whole process.
We need a small business policy that benefits true small busi-
nesses, not the $5.8 trillion in the tax giveaway which they are
planning on continuing and putting on the books. We need tax
breaks for working families. We need childcare tax breaks. We
need to protect Medicaid. We need real tax reform in this country
that will propel our economy, not this drain on the limited reve-
nues we have in the country to send more to the upper 1 per-
centile. That is not the problem in our society right now.
I look forward to this hearing and it just feels great to be back
here in the House of Representatives where I served for 36 years.
And I just love this institution.
And I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
And I now will introduce our witnesses. Our first witness here
with us today is Mr. Tom Click. Mr. Click is the president and
chief executive officer and co-founder of Patriot Industries in Lou-
isa, Virginia. And Mr. Click and his wife Sarah founded Patriot In-
dustries in 2010. Prior to that, Mr. Click spent 10 years in the met-
als industry and most recently as vice president of market develop-
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ment for Norsk Hydro Aluminum and previously as vice president
of Marketing and Product Development for Indalex Aluminum.
Before entering the metals industry, Mr. Click managed the
product management and engineering departments for the
Amerock Division of Newell Rubbermaid. Mr. Click is an advisory
board member of the GENEDGE Alliance and a member of the Vir-
ginia Growth and Opportunity Foundation.
Mr. Click holds a Master’s of business administration from the
Gatton College of Business in economics and a Bachelor of business
administration from the University of Kentucky. We appreciate you
being here today and your wife.
Our next witness with us today is Mr. Preston Brashers. Mr.
Brashers is a research fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Grover
M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Brashers has been with the Heritage Foundation since 2021.
Prior to that, Mr. Brashers was a tax policy specialist in the re-
search and fiscal analysis division of the Washington State Depart-
ment of Revenue and a transfer and pricing manager at
PricewaterhouseCoopers. He also contributed to the analysis for
the Heritage Foundation’s budget blueprint for fiscal year 2023 and
the budget blueprint for fiscal year 2022.
Mr. Brashers holds a Ph.D. and Master of Science in economics
from the University of Kentucky.
Did you all know each other in school? Same?
And earned a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Univer-
sity of Washington. I want to thank you for joining with us today.
Now, it is my honor to yield to Chair Ernst to introduce our next
witness.
Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And I am pleased to have a fellow Iowan with us today. Mr.
Jerry Akers is the president of Sharpness, Inc. and MOCA, Inc.,
and is from Palo, Iowa. Mr. Akers started his journey as a Great
Clips franchisee and with the help of his two daughters and son-
in-law he now operates more than 40 franchises across three dif-
ferent businesses in both Iowa and in Nebraska.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Upper Iowa University, the
Peacocks right? That is right. The Fighting Peacocks. Again, thank
you for taking the time and making the trip to Washington, D.C.
to share with this committee your perspective on the Tax Cuts and
Jobs Act. And thanks to your family as well.
Mr. Akers has a fantastic family and I hope to hear about their
experience with your business as well.
Thank you and I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize the Ranking Member from New York, Ms.
Velázquez, to introduce our last witness appearing before us today.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Our final witness today is Ms. Anne Zimmerman, the Founder
and Owner of Zimmerman & Co CPAs, Inc., a public accounting
firm with offices in Cincinnati and Cleveland. Since the mid-1980s
she has provided financial and tax services to small businesses and
individuals and acts as the off-site CFO for many businesses.
She also co-founded and sold a number of businesses, including
a large IT cloud company in 2017. She is currently a Co-Chair of
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Small Business for America’s Future, a small business advocacy or-
ganization that helps to ensure policymakers prioritize main street
by advancing jobs and equitable economic framework that works
for small business owners, their employees, and their communities.
She holds degrees in both business management and accounting
from the University of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Univer-
sity. Thank you for being here this morning.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
And I want to thank all of you myself for being here today. And
before recognizing the witnesses I would like to remind them that
their oral testimony is restricted to 5 minutes in length.
If you see the light in front of you turn red it means that your
5 minutes is up and concluded and you should wrap up your testi-
mony. If you get around 5 minutes and hear this, you need to stop.
Okay?
And with that, I now recognize Mr. Click for his 5-minute open-
ing remarks.
STATEMENTS OF TOM CLICK, PRESIDENT, CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, AND CO-FOUNDER, PATRIOT INDUSTRIES; PRES-
TON BRASHERS, RESEARCH FELLOW, TAX POLICY, THE HER-
ITAGE FOUNDATION; JERRY AKERS, PRESIDENT, SHARP-
NESS INC. AND MOCA INC.; AND ANNA ZIMMERMAN, FOUND-
ER & OWNER, ZIMMERMAN & CO CPAS INC.
TESTIMONY OF TOM CLICK, PRESIDENT, CEO AND CO-
FOUNDER, PATRIOT INDUSTRIES
Mr. CLICK. Chairwoman Ernst, Chairman Williams, and distin-
guished Members of the Senate Committee on Small Business and
Entrepreneurship and the House Committee on Small business,
thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on the impor-
tance of permanently extending provisions of the Tax Cuts and
Jobs Act, TCJA, benefitting privately owned businesses like Patriot
Industries and our employees.
Since the passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, our invest-
ments in equipment and workers have increased, fueling economic
growth at Patriot. If Congress does not act this year, both our busi-
ness and our employees will be hit with a massive tax hike.
Furthermore, without the extension of Section 199(a), businesses
like Patriot are at risk of falling victim to the ongoing consolidation
of economic power that is shifting control away from America’s
main street and further into the hands of a few dominant and of-
tentimes foreign-owned corporations.
My wife Sarah, who is with me here today, and I started Patriot
in 2010 with 1,000 square feet of space and one manual conduit
threading machine that I purchased on eBay for $5,000. Like so
many small businesses in America, we encountered both triumphs
and setbacks along the way.
In addition to navigating complex tax policies, burdensome regu-
lations, and the high cost of compliance, I faced a life-threatening
illness. If it weren’t for our entire work family pulling together dur-
ing that difficult time, Patriot might not have survived.
Thankfully, I recovered and together we built a company that
epitomizes the American Dream. Today, in 2025, Patriot has three
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USA-based factories totaling 140,000 square feet and we employ
nearly 100 work family team members and we pay our bills on
time.
While Patriot is successful today, our humble beginnings remind
me of how fragile small businesses can be. The 2017 Tax Cuts and
Jobs Act was a game changer. It reduced financial roadblocks for
small businesses like ours, allowing us to reinvest, expand, and
create more jobs.
One of the most impactful provisions was the 20 percent deduc-
tion for small businesses which gave pass-through entities like ours
the ability to grow at a faster pace and compete on a level playing
field with larger corporations.
Additionally, the expansion of immediate expensing laws allowed
us to write off the full cost of purchasing new equipment rather
than depreciating it over decades. This change was critical for man-
ufacturing companies like ours, which rely on high-cost machinery.
Since 2017, we have invested nearly $4 million in advanced man-
ufacturing equipment. If the law reverts to the old system business
expansion will slow and small companies like ours will be forced
to delay investments that drive innovation and job creation.
Beyond the business benefits, lowering income tax rates across
the board meant that every worker kept more of their hard-earned
money. The expansion of the child tax credit and the doubling of
the standard deduction provided additional relief for working fami-
lies, allowing them to save more and invest in their futures.
If these tax cuts expire our employees will face a direct pay cut
through higher taxes, making it harder for them to afford neces-
sities and plan for their financial security.
Beyond immediate tax relief, another critical reason Congress
must act now is to prevent the devastating impact of the estate tax,
or as many call it, the death tax. Personally, I would like to re-
frame it as the survivor’s tax since the people who actually have
to pay it are the spouses and their children.
Some believe the estate tax is a well-deserved tax on the rich.
In reality, it punishes family-owned businesses at the exact mo-
ment the company is being passed to the next generation.
At Patriot we have spent years growing our company, reinvesting
in equipment, expanding operations, and creating jobs. But if I
were to pass away unexpectedly, the federal government could de-
mand a 40 percent survivor’s tax on the business our family has
spent our lives building.
To meet that burden, my family might be forced to lay off work-
ers or even sell the business entirely. The real danger comes from
how the estate tax applies to non-liquid assets. Patriot maintains
over $10 million in inventory across 11 states to mee the needs of
our customers. This inventory along with the heavy equipment we
use is considered part of the business’ valuation when calculating
the estate tax.
Unlike large corporations with massive cash reserves, small busi-
nesses like ours don’t have that kind of liquid case available. The
estate tax could easily cripple our ability to keep Patriot in the
family.
To plan for pain, the 40 percent survivor’s tax, family businesses
must divert money away from hiring, expansion, and innovation
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and instead use it on attorneys, consultants, and insurance policies,
which will ironically be valued as part of the estate that is being
taxed.
Estate planning should be a part of every company’s long-term
strategy, not decided by a black swan event. I have seen firsthand
the benefits of the TCJA for our family business and work family
team. I urge Congress to permanently extend these provisions as
well as further reforms, such as the repeal of the estate tax to sup-
port family businesses like Patriot Industries, which are the back-
bone of our economy.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my perspective and I look
forward to the discussion here today. God bless you and God bless
America.
Chairman WILLIAMS. the gentleman yields back right on time.
I now recognize Mr. Brashers for his 5-minute opening remarks.
TESTIMONY OF PRESTON M. BRASHERS, RESEARCH FELLOW
ON TAX POLICY, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mr. BRASHERS. Chairman Williams, Chairwoman Ernst, Rank-
ing Member Velázquez, Ranking Member Markey, and Members of
the committees, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify
today.
My name is Preston Brashers. I am a research fellow for tax pol-
icy at the Heritage Foundation in the Grover M. Hermann Center
for the Federal Budget. The views I express in this testimony are
my own and should not be construed as representing any official
position of the Heritage Foundation.
It is fitting that the title of today’s hearing says, ‘‘ Keeping Taxes
Low for Small Businesses,’’ as opposed to cutting taxes. Some have
mischaracterized what is at stake here.
The small business tax provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs
Act have been in place for nearly 8 years and if Congress allows
them to lapse, then American entrepreneurs and small businesses
would face a tax hike of more than a trillion dollars over the next
decade. So, it is worth emphasizing that this is not about cutting
taxes. It is about avoiding an enormous tax hike.
Indeed, most small business owners would probably reject the
notion that their taxes are low in the first place. TCJA included
more than just tax cuts but also structural reforms, simplifications,
and base-broadening revenue raisers. In addition to some perma-
nent changes, TCJA temporarily suspended certain flawed ele-
ments of the tax code that had punished business owners and en-
trepreneurs who choose to invest in their workers and in the Amer-
ican economy.
Those expiring provisions will be the focus of my testimony
today. TCJA addressed some of the more egregious problems that
existed in the tax code until 2017. For example, it makes no sense
to tax income from business investments before a business has ac-
tually earned that income, but that is effectively what happens
when the tax system forces businesses to capitalize and depreciate
such business expenses over many years or decades instead of al-
lowing them to deduct those costs when determining their current
taxable income.
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To address that problem, TCJA implemented full and immediate
expensing for capital equipment and machinery. For 5 years be-
tween 2018 and 2022, the tax treatment for these formerly depre-
ciable capital assets was corrected but, unfortunately, full and im-
mediate expensing, also known as bonus depreciation, is now
gradually sunsetting.
One of Congress’ top priorities should be to lock in full and im-
mediate expensing not just for another few years but permanently.
Similarly, Congress should address one of the unfortunate com-
promises of TCJA, the 5-year amortization of research and experi-
mental costs. That provision is structured in a way that delays to
a later year 90 percent of the value of deductions for expenses re-
lated to research and experimental activities, including employee
compensation costs, material and supply costs, costs of obtaining a
patent and certain operations, management, and travel costs.
The resulting short-term financial hit from this artificially accel-
erated tax liability can be severe for startup companies with lim-
ited cash flow and limited access to capital markets.
TCJA also expanded death tax exemptions, helping to shield
family farms and businesses from a devastating 40 percent federal
tax on assets passed down to family members. Allowing the death
tax exemption to be cut in half, which will happen if TCJA expires,
could be the death knell for some asset rich but cash poor small
and mid-sized family businesses.
Finally, no other expiring provision in TCJA had a larger impact
on the amount of taxes paid by entrepreneurs and small business
owners than the 20 percent pass-through deduction, known as Sec-
tion 199(a). While some reforms or improvements to the design of
199(a) are certainly possible, simply letting the provision lapse
would be unthinkable to millions of American business proprietors
who claim the deduction.
Collectively, the expiring TCJA provisions benefiting small busi-
nesses were an indispensable part of the 2017 legislation’s success.
If lawmakers want to revitalize the economy and ensure that
American small business owners and entrepreneurs can thrive,
then extending these provisions should be a top priority.
Lawmakers could multiply the economic growth associated with
these small business-related provisions by ensuring that they are
made permanent. Congress also has the opportunity to build on
TCJA’s success for small businesses by expanding and improving
on expensing provisions in the bill, for example, by mitigating the
harmful phaseout of the Section 179 small business expensing de-
duction.
Thank you.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Akers for his 5-minute opening remarks.
TESTIMONY OF JERRY AKERS, PRESIDENT, SHARPNESS, INC.,
AND MOCA, INC., ON BEHALF OF INTERNATIONAL FRAN-
CHISE ASSOCIATION
Mr. AKERS. Good morning, Chair Williams and Ernst, Ranking
Members Velázquez and Markey, and distinguished Members of
the committee. My name is Jerry Akers, and I am a franchisee
business owner of Great Clips and the Joint Chiropractic. I own
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and operate with my wife Nikki and two daughters Sam and Shelly
32 Great Clips and four of the Joint Chiropractic locations in my
home state of Iowa, as well as Nebraska. I am also a co-author of
a bestselling book, ‘‘ Live It to Own It.’’ It is a franchise bootstrap
guide book leading to the formation of Z-Dynamics which is tasked
with paving the way to success for franchise business owners.
I appreciate the invitation to appear before this committee to
share my story of small business ownership and discuss the views
of local business owners everywhere as it relates to tax policies
that support business, our workforce, and our local economies.
I have experienced firsthand the remarkable impact that fran-
chise businesses can have on local economies and communities, job
creation, and economic growth. My wife and I have created a com-
munity of our own employing over 250 team members that have
been part of our system over the past several years.
These team members are treated as an extension of our family
and receive industry-leading wages and Fortune 500 benefits while
working for a small franchise organization. Much of our continued
success in our business and team members is in part due to the
many important provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Many of the individual and small business provisions are expir-
ing at the end of this year and are critical to locally-owned fran-
chise businesses. I appreciate the urgency with which Congress is
seeking to address these as the uncertainty created by their loom-
ing expiration is giving small business pause as they make invest-
ment decisions that will allow them to grow and create jobs.
First, much like the rest of the small business owners, the 199(a)
tax deduction for qualified businesses’ income has been an impor-
tant lifeline. It has enabled me and almost all franchisees to in-
crease investment in business driving growth and innovation, while
the extra financial breathing room has allowed us to hire more em-
ployees and provide better benefits to existing team members.
More importantly, this deduction has helped level the playing
field allowing businesses like mine to compete with larger corpora-
tions and provide a level of financial stability that has been valu-
able.
The thought of these hard-earned gains being jeopardized is
deeply unsettling. It is not just about numbers. It is about the live-
lihoods of families, the vitality of communities, and the spirit of en-
trepreneurship.
The TCJA also allows businesses to immediately write off 100
percent of the cost of capital investments in qualified property. For
our business, the influx of cash flow is crucial for reinvestment, re-
modeling, and expansion, and managing operational cost.
Unfortunately, bonus depreciation has already begun to phase
out. It stands at 40 percent for this year and it will be phased out
entirely in 2027 absent congressional action. While the bonus de-
preciation provision provided a substantial boost to small business,
its phase down creates a growing concern about increased tax bur-
dens and potential disincentives for investment.
Third, TCJA allowed an increase in the estate tax exemption to
$11 million throughout the end of this year. This provision is crit-
ical to allowing family businesses like mine to be passed down to
the next generation without selling or taking on crushing debt.
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This is very personal to me. Our daughters are minority partners
at this time in our Great Clips location and will eventually own
100 percent of that business. Whether or not they do and that
generational transfer can happen, hopefully, will happen here in
Congress and may well depend on what Congress does as it acts.
Other provisions like the business interest deductibility has been
crucial for the franchise community. Prior to 2022, business ex-
pense deductions were limited by Section 1630(j) to 30 percent of
their earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization,
or IBITDA. Interest deductions are now limited to stricter limita-
tion.
This change combined with rising interest rates is proving to
make incremental investments by small businesses much more ex-
pensive. On average, a business affected by the change could see
a threefold increase in its incremental tax burden, facing both
higher interest rates and financing improvements and a very high
tax rate.
The truth is for many small business owners like me, the TCJA
provisions have been a lifeline. It has provided a sense of stability
allowing me to reinvest in my business, hire new employes and
provide better benefits and weather economic fluctuations.
The prospect of losing that feels like a rug being pulled out from
under me. In the already volatile economic climate, the added layer
of tax uncertainty creates a sense of anxiety, especially for those
who operate on tight margins.
Small businesses are accustomed to taking risk but the threat of
a significantly higher tax burden feels like an unfair and unpredict-
able obstacle in franchising and all small businesses.
I am ready to be a resource for this effort and I thank you again
for the opportunity to testify. I am happy to answer any questions.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Zimmerman for her 5-minute opening re-
marks.
TESTIMONY OF ANNE ZIMMERMAN, FOUNDER AND OWNER,
ZIMMERMAN & CO CPAS, INC., SMALL BUSINESS FOR AMER-
ICA’S FUTURE
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Chairman, Ranking Member, and distin-
guished committee Members, thank you for this opportunity to tes-
tify today. I am Anne Zimmerman, president and CEO of Zimmer-
man & Co CPAs and Co-Chair of Small Business for America’s Fu-
ture, a national coalition of small business owners and leaders.
As a tax professional serving the small business community and
a small business owner myself, I bring a dual perspective to this
discussion. I see firsthand how the tax code impacts our ability to
form, grow, and compete in a marketplace increasingly dominated
by large corporations.
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy representing
99.9 percent of all U.S. firms, employing nearly half of private sec-
tors workers, and contributing 43.5 percent of GDP. Today, these
businesses face challenges amid mounting economic uncertainty.
The NFIB Small Business Confidence Index shows confidence fall-
ing sharply in Q1 2025, largely due to unpredictable tariffs and
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global trade tensions that have sent markets tumbling, creating
fear and uncertainty for planning.
A recent survey of our network shows 51 percent of respondents
have postponed expansion and hiring until policies stabilize. At
this moment of vulnerability, we need a tax code that provides sta-
bility and supports our success.
As we approach the expiration of TCJA provisions we must hon-
estly evaluate whether they have delivered on their promises. The
evidence clearly shows that for most small businesses they have
not.
The Congressional Research Service found that Section 199(a)’s
benefits area skewed. Over half the total dollars went to business
owners with incomes above $500,000 who represent less than 5
percent of eligible taxpayers.
I see this inequality daily in my practice. I recently prepared a
return for a restaurant owner who employs 11 people. He received
just $700 in savings from 199(a), hardly transformative for his
business.
The same day I prepared a return for someone with over $4 mil-
lion in income who received $6,700 for the same deduction simply
because of his investments in real estate partnerships. He employs
no one.
A survey of small business owners in our network confirms these
aren’t isolated cases. Only 6 percent increased business investment
or raised wages and 3 percent hired more employees. Most telling,
43 percent reported no positive impact at all.
So instead of simply extending TCJA provisions that help some
but left most behind, here are some solutions that Congress should
implement to help Main Stret. Exempt the first $25,000 of small
business profit from federal income tax to deliver immediate relief
to entrepreneurs in critical early years.
Simplify the tax code to remove the financial burden that creates
a competitive disadvantage.
Create a small business standard deduction to reduce compliance
costs for early stage businesses.
Establish a tax credit for hiring first employees to help entre-
preneurs make the crucial leap to employer status.
Look for responsible ways to pay for tax reform that level the
playing field for small business without slashing valuable programs
like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent
would ensure corporations pay their fair share while generating
substantial revenue.
Close unfair loopholes that disadvantage small businesses. Elimi-
nating just the roundtripping loophole alone would generate nearly
$70 billion over 10 years for deficit reduction, healthcare costs, or
small business support.
Continue IRS service improvement and modernization plans.
This is crucial. The IRS was able to collect more than $1.1 billion
in unpaid tax debts from the top 1 percent in 2024, up from just
$38 million a year prior.
Ensuring wealthy individuals and large corporations pay their
fair share generates significant revenue to help our communities.
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The expiration of the TCJA presents a rare opportunity to create
a tax code that truly supports all American small businesses and
we should seize it.
Thank you.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
And we will now move to the Member questions under the 5-
minute rule.
I recognize myself for 5 minutes. Mr. Click, in your testimony
you talk about the importance of reinvesting in your business with
the money you save with the small business pass-through deduc-
tion. This critical provision, Section 199(a), leveled the playing field
for small businesses and fueled their growth.
So the question is, if this provision expired how would it limit
your ability to reinvest and grow your business?
Mr. CLICK. Without equipment we would grow slower. We would
still be methodical. We would still invest in the company but being
able to expense everything in the first year makes it a lot easier
to accelerate your plans. So, our 10-year plan might become a 7-
year plan, a 5-year plan.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you.
Mr. Brashers, the 2017 Trump tax cuts allowed small businesses
to immediately expense research and development costs which
incentivized innovation in the defense industry tremendously. That
provision expired in 2022 and here we are a few years later while
China and other foreign adversaries are taking advantage and are
offering a 200 percent tax credit for the same research and develop-
ment. So, wouldn’t you agree that this has put our national secu-
rity at risk?
Mr. BRASHERS. I think the research and development amortiza-
tion is a bad policy to have 90 percent of the deduction pushed off
after the first year. I think it is especially harmful to small busi-
nesses. But, as you say, to any company that is doing research and
development it is going to have harmful effects.
Chairman WILLIAMS. You know, in terms of U.S. global com-
petitiveness and American security what will the future look like
if Congress fails to reinstate immediate R&D expensing?
Mr. BRASHERS. I think you are certainly going to see if R&D
[expensing] is extended and brought back, because it has expired
at this point, I think that will boost the amount of research and
development that is happening. I think it is going to be dollar for
dollar perhaps the biggest bang for the buck in this package of tax
provisions.
It is just a very high priority for so many businesses and that
it just makes no sense for the tax code to penalize companies for
engaging in research and development activities that are going to
benefit not just them but their employees and the American econ-
omy and others that are going to be able to benefit from those inno-
vations that they come up with. So, I think it is critical.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Mr. Akers, as a franchise owner, which I
am also a franchise owner, you know how important it is that your
equipment and machinery is up to date. You want to be able to de-
liver and provide the product for your customers but this invest-
ment comes at a cost and that is why Congress included a 100 per-
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cent bonus depreciation, which we have talked about this morning,
in the TCJA.
However, that provision that we talked has already begun to
phase out, so what did this provision help you buy the tools and
equipment needed to make your business a success and give cus-
tomers the service?
Mr. AKERS. Thank you for the question. The bottom line is
when you are in a retail-oriented business you have got to be at
the top of your game. You have got to be able to have new equip-
ment. You have got to have equipment that is cutting edge. You
have got to have things that make an impression.
You simply cannot do that if you are held back by not being able
to deduct that at the right time. If it is spread over several years
we are going to delay those improvements.
By the way, that also impacts our throughput which means it
hurts employment because we don’t need as many employees if we
can’t be on top of it.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Well, if you get a chance to write it off
it opens up more cash to buy something else, right, and——
Mr. AKERS. Absolutely and that many times goes back to em-
ployees, whether it is increased benefits or increased wages. Be-
cause we have got X amount of money to spend we have got to de-
cide where to do it. If we are paying it in, you know, longer deduc-
tions it is going to be hard to spend that on the employees.
Chairman WILLIAMS. I yield back.
And I now recognize Chair Ernst for 5 minutes of her ques-
tioning.
Senator ERNST. Yes. Thank you, Chairman Williams.
Mr. Akers, again, thanks for making the trip out here to Wash-
ington, D.C. and for representing Iowa small business.
As you know, the TCJA provided significantly higher exclusions
from the estate tax for families dealing with the death of a loved
one. This is an issue that impacts our farmers, business owners,
and capital-intensive industries and owners like yourself who have
built a successful enterprise that your family helps to operate
today. Personally, I support an end to the death tax altogether.
That said, can you discuss how important the estate tax changes
from the TCJA are for you and your family, your daughters and
son-in-law, and what you have had to do in anticipation of losing
the higher exemptions under the TCJA?
Mr. AKERS. The bottom line is we are stimulating the economy
by hiring really smart CPAs and attorneys to try and figure out a
way to do this without letting our daughters lose it.
I am very passionate about this. I am a farm boy from Iowa that
comes from very little, and we have built up a really good business
over the years with one intention and that has to have something
to pass down to the next generation.
That is going to happen. The only question is what will Congress
do to help allow us to make that happen without the kids taking
on multi-millions of dollars in unnecessary loans.
Senator ERNST. Yes, thank you, Jerry.
And, Mr. Click, as well, can you answer that? Do you have any
concerns about the estate tax and how that will affect your family?
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Mr. CLICK. Yes, absolutely. We do have a plan in place but just
removing the estate tax, the survivor’s tax, would give me a lot
more peace of mind.
Senator ERNST. Yes, thank you.
Mr. CLICK. We have three children just now coming into a
phase of their lives where they might be interested in the business.
Senator ERNST. We hope they are.
Mr. CLICK. I do.
Senator ERNST. And, Mr. Click, again, thanks for being here
today as well. The changes to bonus depreciation and immediate
expensing in the TCJA were transformative and nearly every Iowa-
based manufacturer I have spoken to has made it clear how impor-
tant it is to them in ensuring they can maintain and expand their
operations.
So, can you give a little more detail to that and why bonus depre-
ciation and immediate expensing are so important to our small
businesses in capital-intensive industries like manufacturing equip-
ment?
Mr. CLICK. Yes. The equipment is very expensive. It is some-
thing that is a great asset for many, many years but it does wear
out over time and you need to replace it. You need to repair it.
And if you are a business like Patriot where you are intent on
expanding, new locations require a completely new set of equip-
ment.
Our most recent factory was created down in Houston, Texas. It
was about a $2 million investment. Most of that is four Haas CNC
Machine Centers, sorry, five Haas CNC Machine Centers and all
the other support equipment that goes with that. Being able to de-
duct that immediately makes it a lot easier for us to look for the
next location.
Senator ERNST. Yes, 2 million bucks. That is pretty hefty for
small business so——
Mr. CLICK. That is a good value. That is a good value.
Senator ERNST. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Akers and Mr. Click, as our small business witnesses here
I want to know how you and your staff will be affected if the TCJA
is not extended? What are the one or two things you will have to
do to keep your businesses afloat, and what does that mean for
your workers?
And, Jerry, we will start with you, please.
Mr. AKERS. Yes. As I mentioned before, there is a limited
amount of money to go around in a small business like ours so we
have to make decisions about it if this is not put back in place,
frankly, that money will end up coming from our employees at
some point in time in only that it will slow down the improvements
in wages and it will slow down the improvements in benefits
So again, we want to be able to do both. We want to be able to
continue to modernize and grow and expand and then take care of
our employees, but we cannot do both without the help of the
TCJA.
Senator ERNST. Thank you.
And, Mr. Click?
Mr. CLICK. Yes. The tax hike on them personally is probably the
first thing that everybody is going to feel but it will slow down the
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acceleration of the business. And over the years we have added
benefits. When we started we had no health insurance. We had no
401(k). We have both of those now.
We have funds set aside for the employees. We pay bonuses
every year. There is only one pot of money for this and this is a
component that will help make sure that we manage that pot of
money appropriately and for the employees and for the work family
and for the company.
Senator ERNST. And thank you both.
And, Mr. Chair, I just want to note that both of them have re-
sponded that much of the return that they get from the TCJA they
are rolling right back into their employees, whether it is wages,
benefits, bonuses.
So, thank you both for representing our small businesses today,
and I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Ranking Member Velázquez for 5 minutes.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Zimmerman, the president just unilaterally enacted signifi-
cant tariffs on virtually every country except Russia. Can you dis-
cuss the biggest economic policy blunder in the past century and
explain how this will disproportionately harm small businesses?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Thank you. Absolutely. The small business
uncertainty index is higher than it has been, I think the second
highest ever, even higher than COVID right now. The uncertainty
is killing small businesses. They can’t plan. They don’t know if they
are going to open a new one.
And I spoke just recently with the gentleman that owns a coffee
shop out west and he was already $50,000 into opening his second
location and he is having to put that on hold simply because of the
tariffs that have been enacted. He is going to pay it on everything
that comes in. He can’t negotiate.
We as small business, truly small businesses, don’t have the ne-
gotiating power that a large business has, so for his situation
Starbucks can go to their suppliers and say I am 50 percent of
what you sell. And they can negotiate. They are not going to get
the whole cost of that.
But then there is a watershed effect that comes down that we as
the small businesses are going to pay even more of it because the
suppliers have to make it up.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you. This is just the beginning. With-
out the tariffs even in effect the Atlanta Fed has dropped the real-
time GDP estimate for the first quarter to -3.7 percent. Consumer
sentiment has crashed to the lowest level in years and inflation ex-
pectations are higher than they ever were throughout the Biden
administration.
People understand this will be catastrophic. The share of con-
sumers expecting higher unemployment over the next year is the
highest since 2009, and these were all measures taken before
Trump’s tariff announcement.
Ms. Zimmerman, so many Americans feel that the game is rigged
and small businesses agree. According to your group’s survey, 90
percent of small businesses think the tax code favors large corpora-
tions.
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Based on your conversations with small businesses, what makes
them feel this way?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, they don’t get—a true small business
isn’t really truly on a level playing field, so yes, bonus depreciation
may be great but we already have 179 that up to $1.2 million you
already got to write that off.
So, the small businesses I know generally don’t buy more than
$1.2 million in equipment each year. That is a large one. I mean,
there are some very successful business people here but 90 percent,
I believe it is, or 75 percent of the small businesses in this country
make 75,000 or less.
The million dollars is not what they are worried about. Sur-
viving, having an employee, being a part of their community, we
as the true main street people can’t separate community from em-
ployees from our business.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. You know, I find it astonishing that my col-
leagues act as if the pass-through deduction is the be-all and end-
all of small business tax cuts. Sure, everyone who can navigate its
complexity gets a little something but with over half of the total
benefit going to the top 1 percent we need to seriously consider re-
form before we can move forward responsively.
Ms. Zimmerman, on top of the tax code that favors the wealthy,
Republicans are proposing steep regressive tariffs and a new tax
cut for the rich paid for by gutting Medicaid by $80 billion, edu-
cation by over $300 billion, and nutrition programs by over $200
billion. The goal seems to be funneling wealth upwards from the
middle class to the rich. What impacts do you think this will have
on small businesses on the trust of our institutions?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. An absolutely devastating impact.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Ranking Member Markey for 5 minutes.
Senator MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The announce-
ment of President Trump’s new tariffs should actually be called ob-
literation day instead of liberation day. Liberation day for Trump
is taking us back to the days of Smoot-Hawley, Herbert Hoover,
and the eve of the Great Depression.
Foreign countries have already started retaliating with no end
game in sight. He is making it up as he goes along. And Trump’s
reckless actions will raise costs for small businesses and working
families.
We have already heard from small businesses across the country
concerned about how they will weather the impacts from Trump’s
trade war. For example, in Massachusetts, a small business in the
hospitality industry told my office that their suppliers, which in-
clude local restaurants, grocers, and other small businesses, have
already raised their prices just with the threat of a tariff war.
So, Ms. Zimmerman, how will tariffs hurt small businesses, in-
cluding the ones that you work with?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. It puts them at a great disadvantage. As I
said earlier, we don’t have the negotiating ability and the negoti-
ating power. We also have thinner margins and so the tariffs are
harder for the smaller businesses to take.
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And the economic uncertainty, I mean, they are on one day, they
are off one day, they are on one day. You know, somebody tweets
that they might be postponing and then the market jumps. How do
you plan? 51 percent of our network said we can’t plan. We are
going to put everything on hold.
Senator MARKEY. And for a small business, a truly small busi-
ness, that is potentially catastrophic. Is that right?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. It absolutely is. And the numbers in a small
business, too, that it would take to put us under is so much dif-
ferent than the big numbers that you all have to deal with in your
work every day.
You know, if we can save $70 billion by changing the
roundtripping, closing up that one loophole, how far would that go
for small business? How many individual main street businesses
would that keep open?
Senator MARKEY. So according to the Urban Institute, in 1963
the top 1 percent had 36 times the wealth of the middle class.
Since then that wealth gap has almost doubled with the aggrega-
tion of the wealth in the upper one percentile. Entrepreneurship
can help close that gap between the ultra-wealthy and everyday
Americans, however, policies that grow the wealth gap will hurt
entrepreneurs, given that 75 percent of small businesses use per-
sonal savings to start their firms.
America’s tax policy should not provide small businesses with
pennies while large businesses and wealthy individuals rake in
millions.
As I mentioned in my opening, even the so-called small business
tax deduction, or section 199(a), does not primarily help true small
businesses. The top 1 percent of all earners take home 55 percent
of that tax incentive. That is not a small person. You are making
over a million. You are not in any need of a tax break right now.
Ms. Zimmerman, as an accountant you have helped countless
businesses large and small file their taxes. In your experience,
what kinds of businesses benefit most from the so-called small
business tax deduction?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, obviously, larger small businesses is
the first. I can tell you that 43 percent of our small business own-
ers told us they couldn’t even figure out if they were eligible for it
because they don’t have accountants.
You know, if you are making $75,000 a year how much do you
have for all that tax planning available? You are feeding your fam-
ily. You are feeding your neighbor’s family. The complexity is be-
yond crazy. It doesn’t allow for certain firms. It doesn’t allow for
this, it is for that.
Even I spent a long time trying to weed through it.
Senator MARKEY. Yes. So, that is what really bothers me. I see
Elon Musk now. He is saying, well, the deficits. It is a huge prob-
lem for our country. We have got to destroy the Department of
Education, destroy NIH funding. We are going to have to go in and
loot Medicaid that serves about, you know, 30 percent of our coun-
try.
Grandma and grandpa are in nursing homes. 70 percent of peo-
ple in nursing homes are on Medicaid and half of them have Alz-
heimer’s. He is saying loot all that money. Give it to tax breaks.
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And who gets it? People who make more than $1 million a year.
Can we really afford that because we have to take the money from
grandma and nursing homes, kids who need an education? These
are just crocodile tears coming from Elon Musk and the Repub-
licans about their concern about deficits even as they call for huge
tax breaks for the wealthiest in our society.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Next we have Congressman Stauber from
the great state of Minnesota for 5 minutes.
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I see my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are bringing out their old,
dusty playbooks again. I would just say when we talk about tariffs
I represent northeastern Minnesota.
President Trump put the 232 steel tariffs that saved the iron
range and they were so good that President Biden kept them on.
We have to understand the opportunities that we have because the
secondary positive effects in northeastern Minnesota because of
those tariffs they are still in business today.
And remember, northeastern Minnesota mines the iron ore that
makes almost 82 percent of this nation’s steel, which is a strategic
national security issue. So, the tariffs that President Trump put on
the steel industry and President Biden kept on worked. They saved
the iron range. And as the iron range in northeastern Minnesota
go, so does the state of Minnesota.
Chairman Williams and Chairwoman Ernst, thanks for holding
this meeting today. In northern Minnesota, as I said, small busi-
nesses they are not just the backbone of the economy. They are the
heart of the economy, whether it is a precision manufacturing facil-
ity in Duluth, Minnesota, a family-run logging operation in Grand
Rapids, or a fifth generation farm in Chisholm, or a manufacturing
facility in Forest Lake.
These are the folks who create jobs, train young workers, and
keep our small rural towns alive. That is why the Tax Cuts and
Jobs Act of 2017 was so important. It wasn’t just a tax cut but a
signal that the government wanted our small businesses to take
our economy to that next level.
The 20 percent deduction for pass-through businesses under Sec-
tion 199(a) leveled the playing field for small firms competing
against large corporations. This provision has helped thousands of
Minnesota pass-through businesses like S-corporations and sole
proprietors reinvest in their operations, raise wages, and hire new
employees, as many of you testified today.
Mr. Click, your business has seen remarkable growth over the
past 15 years. If the Section 199(a) deduction sunsets at the end
of this year, how would that impact your ability to invest, hire, and
even stay competitive?
Mr. CLICK. It is all about the equipment. You know, our 10-year
plan we would like to have five more fabrication facilities around
the country. And as I said earlier, each one costs about $2 million,
so that 10-year plan without the Section 199(a) coming back they
push off from 10 years to 12 years or longer.
Mr. STAUBER. You have you have to stay competitive.
Mr. CLICK. We have to stay competitive. We have to keep ad-
vancing. We have the most advanced equipment in this industry.
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We have more advanced equipment than anyone else in the indus-
try combined, and I would like to keep that.
Mr. STAUBER. Yes. And the way you survive is in continuously
investing in that advancement in the equipment so you can stay
competitive.
Mr. CLICK. Absolutely.
Mr. STAUBER. Because if you don’t, you are going to be out of
business. Will that be true?
Mr. CLICK. It would be impactful. I don’t think we will be out
of business. We basically reinvented threading conduit and, again,
we want to keep that title and keep growing.
Mr. STAUBER. Yes. Capital purchases like equipment or new
technology are foundational to long-term growth.
Mr. Akers, from your experience as a franchise owner how did
100 percent bonus depreciation improve your ability to grow your
business? And what risk do you see if this benefit is not made per-
manent?
Mr. AKERS. Bottom line is since that was put into place we have
grown our business by about 25 percent in the number of units,
which is a huge explosion for the Midwest for rural America, as
you said. With that goes 50 jobs or some something in that neigh-
borhood.
So, being able to reinvest in that has accelerated our growth and
will continue to accelerate the growth in the future, as well as
allow us to give more benefits and wages to our employees.
Mr. STAUBER. You know, you just said the loss of 50 jobs. That
is real in small town Iowa or small town Minnesota. People in this
town don’t understand that. We talk about small businesses being
the engine of our economy. We have the opportunity right now to
do that.
I was a small business owner for 31 years. It wasn’t easy. It
wasn’t easy raising four kids and my brothers would say we have
got to come up with $7,000 apiece by next Friday because we can’t
meet net 90.
You folks are the engine of our economy. Don’t ever forget that.
Don’t let this town change your mind or anybody on this dais
change your mind. Small businesses are the engine of our economy.
They are going to make America even better.
Your private investment, you have got to reach in your wallet,
take that risk for the American Dream and be successful and em-
ploy those people that live in our rural small towns. We are de-
pending on you. Don’t quit ever.
And I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize another person from Kentucky, the great state
of Kentucky, Representative McGarvey for 5 minutes.
Mr. MCGARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did see that Mr.
Click and Dr. Brashers definitely went to the University of Ken-
tucky, which I appreciate.
I also want to take a moment right now to just say we are really
thinking about all of the small business owners in Kentucky who
are dealing with the historic flooding right now in our state. It is
really bad and it is ravaging many parts of our state and small
businesses are crushed right now dealing with that.
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So, obviously, now is not the time to be cutting back on some-
thing like FEMA or to hollow out an agency like the Small Busi-
ness Administration which helps the federal relief efforts for our
small businesses hit with this uncertainty.
We have talked a lot about tariffs say. You know, I want to talk
a little bit about tariffs as well. Tariffs are a tool. A tool is neither
good nor bad. A hammer is a tool. It is pretty good for putting a
nail in a wall. It is not so good for fixing your iPhone.
How you use a tool matters and Donald Trump is wielding this
tool in a chaotic way without any strategy, without any plans in
a way that is definitively hurting businesses, small businesses, and
American workers.
One of the ways he is hurting our country with his current tariff
plan is just the uncertainty of it. We had a day a couple of weeks
ago where tariffs were on on Monday, off on Tuesday, on on
Wednesday, off on Thursday.
Right now people are unsure what he is doing. If you read any
coverage of this, conservative, liberal, whatever, they are saying
what is the president actually going to do? Is he going through
this? How does this matter?
And the uncertainty that small businesses face every day regard-
less of what the president decides to do when he wakes up in the
morning is enough already, but this uncertainty that he is causing
by escalating these trade fights on average every 3 days since tak-
ing office is not good for business. And the markets right now cer-
tainly reflect that.
So, I want to ask you, Ms. Zimmerman, I am sure you have
heard a lot from terrified small business owners who are grappling
with this uncertainty over the last several weeks. How does this
uncertainty alone harm small businesses?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. My colleague who is here with me today, a
friend and colleague, has a manufacturing company in Pennsyl-
vania, been in his family for 100 years. Barely survived COVID
with all of that going on, came out on the other end successful, and
now he is being hit with this, which is much worse than what he
was hit with there.
His supplies come in from out of the country. He has no negoti-
ating power. He doesn’t know how much to order for his Christmas,
you know, season because he has no idea. How do you figure that
out when you have no idea?
And if I might say, Representative, the words level playing field
have been used by all of us many of times today. How is a 40 per-
cent tax cut for the biggest businesses and a mere 20 percent de-
duction, not tax cut, but deduction, an even level playing field
when that is what the small business has gotten?
Mr. MCGARVEY. Right and it is not.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. That is not level.
Mr. MCGARVEY. It is not a level playing field and what we
want for our small businesses, for main street, which remains the
backbone of the American economy. We were talking about these
tariffs again and why is it, you have mentioned this, but drill into
why the tariffs cause such disproportionate harm to these small
businesses?
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Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, I think it is the thin margins. It is the
inability to negotiate. You know, if I am selling a widget and I am
truly main street down the block from me that is my neighbor that
is running that store. How does he have any negotiating ability
when Walmart has already told that same supplier that you will
not pass that whole tariff on to me or I will go somewhere else.
Because my neighbor when she does that they don’t care. Go
ahead. I am going to take care of Walmart.
Mr. MCGARVEY. Flipping from the tariffs now to the tax in-
creases, which you talked about, if the House votes this week on
the full extension of the Trump tax bill, which would give the top
0.1 percent of Americans disproportionately, not to mention the top
1 percent of Americans, while giving the rest of us very little, one
of the ways that they are trying to pay for that—it is still going
to add to the debt.
One of the ways that they are trying to pay for that is by cutting
healthcare. That will also have an impact on small businesses,
won’t it?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Absolutely. We help our employees navigate
that and it will make it impossible.
Mr. MCGARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Representative Van Duyne from the great state
of Texas for 5 minutes.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank our witnesses for joining us here today. Time
and time again what we hear loud and clear from businesses all
across the country is they need certainty, parity, and simplicity in
the tax code. And as we move through the budget reconciliation
process we must keep small businesses at the front and center of
our priority.
I am sitting here today listening to Members on, you know, col-
leagues on the other side of the aisle saying that the idea that
under the Biden administration the economy was just fine and
dandy, that is an absolute lie.
Under the Biden administration we saw twice the inflation that
we have seen under the Trump administration. And when you look
at stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that indicates that real
average hourly earnings for private sector employees actually
dropped 2.24 percent between 2021 and 2024. That is not a great
booming economy.
On the flip side, when you look at the TCJA results, the bottom
50 percent of earners paid less income tax than ever before, and
the bottom 20 percent saw their federal tax rate dropped to the
lowest level in 40 year. So somehow the idea that working Ameri-
cans did not benefit from the TCJA, again, is an absolute lie.
The tax cuts also enabled businesses to raise wages leading to a
4.9 percent increase in real wages between 2018 and 2019. That is
the fastest wage growth that we saw in two decades.
Additionally, real median household incomes in the U.S. rose by
$5,000, a larger increase than the previous 8 years combined. And
overall, individuals and families received $3 out of every $4 from
the total 2017 tax cut package demonstrating its direct benefits to
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American households. So, the idea that only large corporations are
benefiting from this, absolute lie.
So earlier this year, I joined my colleague Representative
Smucker in co-sponsoring the Main Street Tax Certainty Act to
make the small business pass-through deduction permanent.
I have also signed on to Representative Arrington’s ALIGN Act
to restore and make full bonus depreciation permanent.
I have joined Representative Estes on his American Innovation
and R&D Competitiveness to permanently allow for immediate
R&D expensing.
These three provisions, cornerstones of President Trump’s signa-
ture tax reforms, have brought about some of the greatest invest-
ments in innovation in our nation’s history and the numbers back
it up.
According to NFIB, letting the 199(a) deduction expire would
force 60 percent of small businesses to raise prices and nearly 44
percent to delay or cancel capital investments. On the other hand,
making the deduction permanent would create 2 million jobs annu-
ally and that is more than 8,000 in just Texas 24 in my district
alone.
So, Mr. Click, how would your business be harmed if the section
199(a) deduction were to sunset?
Mr. CLICK. Again, as I have said, it would slow us down. It
would also slow down our plans to make more products here in the
USA that, unfortunately, the country has stopped making.
And I know there is a lot of talk about tariffs. I am definitely
not a tariff expert but I can tell you from personal experience when
my wife Sarah and I put the company together we made sure that
our products were made here in the USA. And we are the only
company that guarantees all of our aluminum products are made
here in the USA, mostly in Virginia, our feedstock.
The products that we import represent less than 2 percent of our
revenue, and again, we have been through the tariff discussion be-
fore and see minimal impact from that. But I don’t want to slow
down. I want to continue. I want to make those products that we
have to go to other countries for right now.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Having an aluminum manufacturer in my dis-
trict and listening to them complain about how the unfair competi-
tion with the rest of the world that the U.S. government has placed
on them, they really appreciate that. And I thank you for your buy-
ing from American business members.
Mr. Brashers, in your research you emphasize the role of full and
immediate expensing and replacing the IRS’ complex rules for de-
preciation. Assuming that you agree that businesses have to deduct
capital investment expenses over 20 years is impractical, just how
important is full and immediate expensing, especially to capital-in-
tensive small businesses?
Mr. BRASHERS. Well, just to give you some idea, just think
about the inflation that we have just been going through where we
had 8 percent, 9 percent, even 5 percent inflation, and you think
about that deduction and you are telling business owners that they
are not able to actually claim that deduction for 20 years.
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What ends up happening is ultimately you are only potentially
getting about half of the deduction for some of these 20-year assets.
And so it is quite harmful.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. All right, thank you very much.
And I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Representative Simon from the great state of
California for 5 minutes.
Ms. SIMON. Thank you. Thank you, Chairs and Ranking Mem-
bers and thank you witnesses for coming this way and telling your
stories and giving us a wonderful perspective.
In reading the reading materials in the homework, it is to me
clear that this hearing is not necessarily about the prosperity of
main street.
In fact, it seems as if many of us are pretending that tax cuts
for the wealthy will somehow trickle down to the small business
owners who are being pushed to the edge right now.
And yes, 2 years ago, 6 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago
small business owners in this country have consistently struggled
in many of our communities to make ends meet. This hearing is
actually about ignoring the fact that the real economic emergency
is one that we are not talking about right now across the country.
There are tens of thousands of workers, many of them veterans,
first generation Americans, many of them disabled, running small
businesses, many folks who have been fired from our federal gov-
ernment also first generation Americans, many of them veterans,
many of them disabled.
These are not tech giants but we fired folks from our own govern-
ment. Small businesses can’t safely rely on an SBA in this moment
that is being dismembered in real time. We have talked to hun-
dreds of small business owners in our office and they have said
clearly they can’t get through. No one is answering their request.
And if the SBA has to manage $1.6 million in student loans then
they can’t focus on the conversations that we are having today, the
mom and pop vendor on main street, on Broadway Stret. We are
not investing in main street in having these conversations. We are
ripping out the social safety net and we are calling it fiscal respon-
sibility.
So, let’s stop pretending. The economy is not working for working
people. It is not creating opportunity. In this moment we know that
is true. It is not creating a class of folks who can and thrive in real
time.
In fact, we are discarding people, skilled workers and small busi-
ness owners at the same time with no support, no capital, and no
roadmap moving forward. If this hearing was truly about pros-
perity we would be talking about target investments, targeted in-
vestments that expand access to not only capital and real resource
in real time, but also expanding access to healthcare, solidifying
public infrastructure, and a tax system that honors work, not
wealth.
Instead, we are watching a slow collapse, a real collapse, and
there is no up from here unless we change course.
I have a question to Mr. Zimmerman and thank you for being
here, excuse me, Mr. Zimmerman. Thank you for being here today.
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Ms. Zimmerman, you serve real business owners, real folks, people
holding together families, communities, and folks who are dis-
bursing paychecks to real everyday folk in community.
And in this moment, as the administration disbands critical safe-
ty nets, disbands the services that are supposed to support these
small business owners, disbands the SBA with no clear strategy
moving forward, what are your clients afraid of most? And what
would an actual true investment right now, not performative tax
cuts, look like for them?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. My clients’ risk is not surviving through this
uncertainty. It is not surviving through the tariffs. We can talk
about maybe tariffs being, as you said, a tool and maybe being suc-
cessful coming out the other side but they are not going to be there
on the other side for this. They are going to be gone by then.
And those are my neighbors. And by cutting Medicaid and Medi-
care and all these safety nets, the SBA, even the IRS where we are
taking away tools that they are using directly, you know, my col-
leagues who have larger businesses maybe even employ 100 or 200
people, they are not going to the SBA directly. They have lawyers
and bankers and stuff.
Ms. SIMON. That is right.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. I am talking about the true main street en-
trepreneur who relies on that.
Ms. SIMON. I want to thank you for your answer. Andthat you
have such little time but I think you pinned it correctly.
As your clients continue to navigate entrepreneurship in this
economy where the foundation that they stand on is being pulled
out from under, I hope we get it right. I hope we get it right.
And thank you all so much for being here today. I appreciate
your testimony.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Representative Alford from the great state of
Missouri for 5 minutes.
Mr. ALFORD. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Chairwoman Ernst, for holding this important hearing today. I
would also like to thank the senators here for making the trek over
the House.
Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today on your
own time and own dime. American experienced its greatest econ-
omy in my lifetime under President Trump, and that was no coinci-
dence. It was thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
The TCJA allowed Americans to take the leap. It allowed busi-
nesses to flourish. It allowed our country to move forward as one
nation under God. It ushered in the hope and reality of the Amer-
ican Dream as small business owners around our nation were all
living their own version of it.
Allowing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provision to expire and in-
creasing taxes will not only further hurt the competitiveness of our
small businesses; it will crush them. The jobs that they provide will
no longer be there. The communities they serve will suffer. People
will go out of business.
It will chill the hope and reality of the American Dream on main
street that we all saw was possible just a few years ago. I would
urge my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, senators and rep-
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resentatives, to work together to make sure that the 2026 does not
usher in the largest tax increase in U.S. history.
And let’s get one thing straight. Enough of the lies and deception
and gaslighting. This is not a tax cut for billionaires and million-
aires. This is an extension of tax policy that is going to allow mom
and pop businesses in the 4th Congressional District of the great
state of Missouri to stay in business, to hire people, to make rural
parts of America flourish.
Mr. Brashers, many of my Democratic colleagues have painted
an extension of this Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as handouts for
oligarchs, tax cuts for the rich. Can you explain why they are
wrong?
Mr. BRASHERS. After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed we
actually saw that the bottom 50 percent paid a smaller portion of
federal taxes than they did prior to the TCJA. The idea that the
TCJA was simply a giveaway to the very wealthy is just not backed
up by the facts.
Mr. ALFORD. And, in fact, it is going to be a big deterrent to
starting small businesses in America, will it not?
Mr. BRASHERS. Yes.
Mr. ALFORD. Explain that.
Mr. BRASHERS. Yes, absolutely. So, what we are talking about
right now with the extension of these provisions, keep in mind that
the corporate rates that has been locked in, so if you were to allow
this to lapse what you would actually have would be that the small
businesses would be slammed with a 20 percent tax increase in the
case of the 199(a) deduction.
And all businesses would be hit with tax increases from the ex-
pensing and all these other provisions we have been talking about
today. These would be pretty much across the board for businesses.
They are going to be paying significantly higher taxes and abso-
lutely it is going to hit the small businesses the hardest.
Mr. ALFORD. Mr. Akers, let’s dive into this just a little bit more.
If this section 199(a), the pass-through business deduction is elimi-
nated for Main Street America, what is that going to mean to busi-
ness in America, 33 million small business owners?
Mr. AKERS. Well, the bottom line is that money has got to come
from somewhere. If we are paying more in taxes we can’t use it for
other things. Again, I reiterate most of that comes from increased
prices to consumers. It comes from lower future benefits and wage
increases for our employees.
Our piece of the pie is as an owner is very narrow. It is very tiny.
We cannot give up any more of it so it has got to come from some-
where else.
Mr. ALFORD. Thank you. I have 24 counties in my district from
south of Kansas City over to The Lake of the Ozarks down to
Springfield. I am in the district all the time. I talk to small busi-
ness owners.
They are deathly worried and rightfully so about us not getting
this done and them not being able to compete against the big guys.
We must—we must renew these provisions. It is not a tax cut for
the rich. It is not for the billionaires and millionaires. This is for
mom and pop. This is for the people who run the sawmills for black
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walnut in the state of Missouri. It is for people who have sign com-
panies in Sedalia, Missouri.
This is not about the rich. It is about making America wealthy
again through small business. Thank you so much and I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Senator Hirono from the great state of Hawaii
for 5 minutes.
Senator HIRONO. Thank you. It is Hirono. I thank the two
Chairs for this, and I say Aloha to our witnesses. I am glad that
Ms. Zimmerman is here.
The bottom line is that who is going to benefit or who benefited
from the 2017 tax changes? And, Ms. Zimmerman, I think you de-
scribed small businesses as a 90 percent of small businesses who
are making what or have revenues of what did you say?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. 75 percent earn end up with—live off of
$75,000 or——
Senator HIRONO. $75,000 for the 75 percent.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Yes, something like that.
Senator HIRONO. And how many of these are the small busi-
nesses, and there are thousands of small businesses that fit into
that category?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Oh, yes.
Senator HIRONO. How many of them do you think benefited
from the 199(a) tax provisions?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, we know that it is to the degree——
Senator HIRONO. This is the category of the 75 percent. I am
not talking about the ones who have franchises and over 100 em-
ployees.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, if you think about it, if they made
$75,000 or let’s even say 100 to make it simple, okay? So, if they
made 100 then they get a deduction of 20 and their tax rate at that
rate is only 12, so they are getting $2,000, $2,400. That is their
benefit. How many employees are they going to hire with $2,400
is what I am saying?
And I am hearing about sunsetting. We can’t let these sunset be-
cause it would kill small businesses. Absolutely, but there are other
options than sunsetting.
Don’t you have the right as our representatives and senators to
improve it instead? don’t you have the right to change it? Why did
we have a 40 percent cut for the Amazons of the world and I got
a 20 percent deduction, which actually I don’t get, but I won’t go
into the technicalities of it——
Senator HIRONO. So, Ms. Zimmerman, we are going to be con-
fronted with extending the 2017 tax bill so if we were to focus on
the 75 percent of small businesses who I think I would describe as
truly small businesses, how would we change? What kind of
changes would we make to, for example, 199(a) or any of the other
existing provisions that we were asked to simply re-up?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, 199(a) is very complex and that is part
of its problem.
Senator HIRONO. Well, I know that.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Yes, and so perhaps simplifying the overall
code so that the truly small business benefits. Give them a credit
for their first employee. Many of those businesses it is just one per-
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son. If they want to grow they are hiring their first one, right? Give
them a credit for hiring that.
Give them a standard deduction ability so that they don’t have
to track every receipt when they are out mowing people’s lawns,
right? And they can instead take that standard deduction.
Close some loopholes to push money back to small businesses.
Senator HIRONO. So, I think that the information that we have
that the 2017 tax bill actually benefited the richest people in our
country and corporations, I don’t think there is any amount of
gaslighting that is going to change those statistics.
So, what I am interested in, again, is how do we truly help the
majority of small businesses as described by you, Ms. Zimmerman,
folks who are bringing in less than $75,000 a year and those are—
that would not be the two gentlemen who own businesses who are
on this panel, by the way. You do not constitute small businesses
as described by Ms. Zimmerman.
So, I am going to be very interested in finding out, you know,
what provisions we can put into this bill, well, actually that would
presume that I actually—that there are provisions in the bill that
actually help people. I think not. But again, I just want to thank
you for being real, Ms. Zimmerman.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Thank you.
Senator HIRONO. Thank you for being here.
Thank you for both of our Chairs.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Representative Wied from the great state of Wis-
consin for 5 minutes.
Mr. WIED. Every single day in my offices both in D.C. and the
district receive requests from local small business owners asking
me to support the extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts. I would
like to tell them directly that I am fully committed to advocating
for the extension and codification of the important tax breaks for
small businesses.
Those on the other side of the aisle don’t support this. They be-
moan the growing federal deficit and falsely claim that by extend-
ing the Trump tax cuts we will add to our federal debt.
Let me be clear. The federal government does not have revenue
problem. We have a spending problem, not to mention this, maybe
the first time ever the American people have heard Democrats con-
cerned about debt.
Instead, they spent their time proposing one bloated federal
budget after another. Rather than cheering on our efforts to cut
discretionary spending and make sure the American people are
prioritized by our own government, they spent their time claiming
we are attacking democracy.
The message from Democrats is clear. They want to raise taxes
on everyday Americans to pay for DEI programs in Serbia, Sesame
Street in Iraq, and transgender surgeries in Guatemala. They want
to punish American small business owners by saddling them with
added regulatory costs that make it harder for them to do business.
Republicans are focused on our primary mission, helping the
American people and allowing main street to prosper again. One of
the common misconceptions about the Trump’s tax cuts is that they
primarily benefit the wealthy.
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Mr. Click, if we took one provision of the Trump’s tax cuts, the
199(a), a CRS report found that 80 percent of 199(a) claims were
filed by those making under $200,000 a year and 98 percent of all
claims were filed by those making under $1 million. How vital are
199(a) deductions for businesses making under $1 million a year to
maintain and potentially expand their small business?
Mr. CLICK. I think they are absolutely critical, and I think all
the small businesses are actually tied together. You know, there
was a comment that we may not represent businesses that make
less than $75,000 but I can tell you from personal experience of the
years where I made less than $75,000 while risking everything for
this company. I think we might represent what these smaller busi-
nesses would like to grow into and become.
And without this, without the TCJA, it is going to go much slow-
er and it is going to be much harder for the smaller businesses that
maybe are designed to be a lifestyle business instead of something
that is much larger.
Mr. WIED. Very good. I would agree. In my business we could
have lost $100,000 or maybe made $50,000 or maybe we made
$200,000 in it and sometimes you don’t have control over. It is a
very difficult thing.
Mr. Akers, as a former small business owner I know the benefits
of section 168(k) bonus depreciation for small businesses to replace
equipment and machinery. In my district we have over 1,000 man-
ufacturing firms employing almost one-quarter of our working pop-
ulation, with 89 percent of those manufacturing firms in my dis-
trict are classified as small businesses.
With Republicans working to return manufacturing back to the
United States right now, how important would raising the bonus
depreciation back to 100 percent be for small manufacturers look-
ing to expand their business?
Mr. AKERS. Well, I would add that it is important for every
small business, not just manufacturers, but thank you for the ques-
tion. The bottom line is we want to grow.
I agree with Mr. Click. You know, we are being characterized as
being not small business, but the fact is each and every one of us
started out with one unit losing money, risking millions of dollars
of our own money, and sometimes not getting a paycheck.
So, it is critical that we have the opportunity to continue to grow
and expand because, once again, most small businesses want to
grow into more than one unit or two units or three units and they
cannot do that without these benefits.
Mr. WIED. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Representative Scholten from the great state of
Michigan for 5 minutes.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so
much for holding this critical hearing today. We are seeing unprec-
edented attacks on our small businesses across the country and
they are struggling to keep place in a market that increasingly
does not work for them here in the great state of Michigan, where
we are at the center of the attacks on businesses across the coun-
try, where tariffs are reaching an all-time high.
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You know, we know it all too well. We are facing budget before
the Congress this week that will add additional burdens if we are
not careful. Studies from organizations like the International Mon-
etary Fund and the Tax Policy Center have found that foreign in-
vestors retained more earnings as a result of the TCJA’s reduction
in effective tax rates.
Let’s be clear about who benefits from an extension of these tax
rates. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are essentially
proposing that we cut critical services like Medicaid and SNAP to
pay for tax cuts that benefit not only the wealthiest our nation, but
also those who don’t even live in this country.
Ms. Zimmerman, do you agree that the federal government
should ensure that large companies both here and abroad pay their
fair share of taxes before we allow poor and middle class workers
to foot the bill of a plan they do not stand to benefit from?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. I do. Thank you for the question and let me
clarify. I am not an adversary of my colleagues here on the panel.
I commend them and applaud them for their success in business,
and I think their continued success is just instrumental in our com-
pany. So, I don’t—in our country growing. I don’t want to make
that split.
But what I am saying is we don’t have to fix this with that pro-
verbial hammer. Can’t you stop the fact, I mean, yeah, there are
statistics all over. Half of the 199 pool, half of it went to people,
the top 5 percent, okay? So, throwing statistics around, yeah, we
got some more. Maybe we paid a little more.
My daughter and son-in-law they are a union teacher and fire-
fighter and I thank them for what they do.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. I thank them for what they do as well.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. And when the TCJA came through I have
started many a business. I own my own business. I got a much big-
ger savings than they did as they raised their four children.
And to me that is where we needed a little finesse.
Surely we can do something to change this so that we are not
shoving all this money to the higher income levels or to foreign in-
vestors, as you say.
And the social safety net is so very important for the smaller
businesses. They can’t survive if their community is not healthy,
bottom line. We are one with our community.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. It is essential. Thank you. One message that
I consistently hear from business owners back home is the need for
more workers. We are experiencing a shortage across industries,
small businesses in particular. We feel that and see in practice that
the current administration’s practices are exacerbating some of
those conditions.
I want to stay with you just for one second. You suggest in your
testimony that a tax credit for entrepreneurs who are hiring em-
ployees for the first time may be a good idea. Can you expand a
little bit on that idea and tell us how some policies like these,
which give targeted support to businesses in early stages, could
help us address some of these larger workforce issues?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Right, because that is not using the hammer
right.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Yes.
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Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Let’s make those small changes. All of these
millions of businesses that are making below $100,000 they are
getting ready to hire their first employee or they have just hired
their first employee——
Ms. SCHOLTEN. That is right.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN.—that everybody on this panel will tell you
that is a scary leap of faith going off the cliff when you hire that
first person.
And yes, we are putting our own money into hiring them. And
yes, we are putting our own money in to make payday. So, a credit
for that first employee that comes back immediately through the
payroll credit system. We have that in place. That would be very
helpful.
Ironically, funding the IRS, and I know. I am a CPA and I have
to deal with them but it helps small businesses who have to work
with them more as a—it shouldn’t be adversarial. We are trying to
be compliant and we can’t if you close the offices all down.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Senator Husted from the great state of Ohio for
5 minutes
Senator HUSTED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for in-
viting us to join you today for this hearing.
I thank all of you for being here and what you contribute to the
world through your work. My wife is a small business owner but
she’s like most small business owners. 81 percent of small business
owners in America are sole proprietorships. They don’t have any
employees. I would like to focus my conversation on those busi-
nesses that have employees, the other 19 percent are, the ones who
beyond themselves create jobs for others.
And I want you to think about the TCJA in that context. If it
were to go away versus if we renew it, how would that impact your
employees? How does that impact?
And I will start with you, Mr. Click. How does the structure of
how we assemble the tax code across the board and everything that
has been discussed today, how does that impact your employees
and your ability to take care of them?
Mr. CLICK. Thank you, great question. You know, I have said
it several times that it slows down the businesses, but it is also
that the business is also very interconnected. And the equipment
and the employees as a work family we all, kind of, work together.
To keep growing the company, to keep investing in equipment
means that I have got new skills that my employees are going to
get to learn. They are going to get paid a higher wage as we go
away from the very basic manual operations to more advanced
CNC operations or even driving trucks, something more valuable
to the company.
Taking away the TCJA slows that down tremendously. We will
keep going but it makes it much easier when everyone is on the
same page and pushing in the same direction.
Senator HUSTED. And I presume that that is not only improving
their skills?
Mr. CLICK. Improving their skills and improving their wages.
Senator HUSTED. Improving their wages and——
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Mr. CLICK. Absolutely.
Senator HUSTED.—productivity gains?
Mr. CLICK. It’s a direct 1:1. As soon as they get that skill——
Senator HUSTED. Get to where you can more all the time?
Mr. CLICK. They get paid more absolutely.
Senator HUSTED. Benefits, wages, all that?
Mr. CLICK. Benefits, bonuses, annual bonuses, mid-year bo-
nuses, the turkeys that we give out for Thanksgiving, all of that
is impacted by this. It is all tied.
Senator HUSTED. So in the end, it is good for small businesses
but it is good for your employees.
Mr. CLICK. It is great for the employees and it is great for the
smaller businesses that are the sole proprietor that provide serv-
ices to companies like Patriot.
Senator HUSTED. Mr. Akers, would you like to share some
thoughts on, reflect on that question?
Mr. AKERS. Yes, thank you very much. Our employees are a
part of our family, to be very honest with you. I know it is trite
but the bottom line is that we can’t do any of the business we do
without our employees, so we pay higher than normal industry
standard wages already.
When the tax cuts came through the first time we increased the
wages by about 20 percent. They have gone up another 10 or 15
percent since then. We will continue to raise them.
Our benefits are by and large huge over most of our competition,
so we can only do that when we have got extra money that we can
do something with. One other thing, the communities we are in
they are dramatically impacted by the money we give back to them
and that comes from this same fund, the ability to have that money
back so that we can redistribute it.
Senator HUSTED. So, let me just, I have a contention that if you
look at history those nations that are the most economically and
militarily successful are the ones that are the most innovative, the
ones where technology allows them to be successful.
In the context of your business and think of your employees, how
much does the investment in new technologies and job training
mean to your productivity levels, which allow you to compete
against foreign competition and improve the overall quality of the
work environment for your employees?
Mr. Click?
Mr. CLICK. That is a great question, and I am so glad that you
asked it. The technology that we brought into our industry had
never crossed over. We are in a 100-year-old industry that was es-
sentially unchanged up until 15 years ago when we came in be-
cause advanced manufacturing is the reason that Patriot exists
today.
And when we take the bankers through and other people through
the company I show them this bank of 16 CNC machines. First
shift we will run all 16 of them with four employees. Second shift
we will run 10 or 12 with two or three employees, and on third
shift we will run seven or eight with zero employees.
And do you know what beats offshore wages? Zero wages on that
machine overnight. It runs automatic. It produces the best quality
products on the planet.
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Senator HUSTED. And that allows you to do Made in America.
Mr. CLICK. Absolutely it does.
Senator HUSTED. And it allows you to continue to make invest-
ments to continue to compete and to have a thriving business
where you can employ people?
Mr. CLICK. Yes, sir.
Senator HUSTED. And so you would say that the renewal of this
is essential to American success and prosperity?
Mr. CLICK. Absolutely it is. It is critical.
Senator HUSTED. Great, thank you. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Representative Tran from the great state of Cali-
fornia for 5 minutes.
Mr. TRAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Zimmerman, just last week former President Trump, I am
sorry, President Trump and his administration proposed one of the
largest tariff tax increase on American people since the 1960s and
already we are seeing the economic ripple effects. The U.S. market
had its worst week since the start of COVID and families are feel-
ing it.
These tariffs are taxes on consumers raising prices on everyday
goods, groceries, cars, appliances, housing materials. These are the
essentials for working families and they simply can’t afford to pay
more at a time when household budgets are already stretched thin.
Let’s be clear. No one voted for more expensive groceries, more
expensive children clothing, more expensive cars, and more expen-
sive household goods. No one voted for President Trump to tank
the stock market and the economy.
And yet, this is what Donald Trump’s economic approach is deliv-
ering. He is creating a recession. In fact, just yesterday, JPMorgan
said, ‘‘ Trump’s tariffs will send the U.S. into a recession.’’
At the same time, small businesses are facing uncertainty. Sup-
ply chains are being disrupted and many Americans could soon see
job losses as a result.
Ms. Zimmerman, the United States is currently experiencing a
cost of living crisis. Everything from rent to groceries to energy are
being squeezed by the consumers. How do you expect tariffs to af-
fect the cost of living crisis?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, what it really does is it creates a dan-
gerous negative feedback loop. It creates higher prices which re-
duces spending, right, which causes business decline, which causes
job losses, which causes future spending reduction. I mean there is
no question.
If it is going to cost the average family $3,800 more just to buy
what they are buying now, they are not going to have as much to
spend at their local businesses period. Some of those businesses are
going to go out of business.
Mr. TRAN. Thank you for that. I was a proud small business
owner myself before coming to Congress. I know that Healthcare
is one of the biggest challenges facing small employers, not just for
themselves but also for attracting and retaining workers. Large
corporations often have the resources to offer group health insur-
ance plans, but small businesses are frequently left to navigate the
individual market.
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That is where the enhanced premium tax credits have made a
real difference by lowering the cost of health insurance through the
Affordable Care Act marketplace, especially for people who are self-
employed or working in small shops. These tax credits have helped
level the playing field and save thousands of dollars the year for
small businesses.
Ms. Zimmerman, my Republican colleagues are more interested
in providing tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires than extend-
ing a tax credit that helps small business owners buy health cov-
erage. Considering this, can you speak to how these enhanced tax
credits have impacted your ability to afford quality coverage for
yourself, your family, or your employees?
And if these tax credits were to expire at the end of the year,
what would that mean for your business?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. One of the biggest competitive disadvantages
we all have here, and certainly smaller businesses have, is health
insurance. We can’t get a reasonable policy for our employees and
so then on the marketplace what we do is we help our employees
eat—well, actually we don’t now. I should change that. We did
when it came out.
We would help our employees go out and find some and we set
up a HR, you know, plan and paid back some of the premiums as
we were allowed to tax free. Without that marketplace, a lot of peo-
ple are going to go uninsured again. And small businesses are
going to lose their employees to the P&Gs and GEs of the world,
which are the big companies in Cincinnati that can give them stel-
lar benefits that we just can’t afford.
Mr. TRAN. Yes. I agree with that. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Representative Meuser from the great state of
Pennsylvania for 5 minutes.
Mr. MEUSER. Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much.
And certainly thank you to our witnesses. The so-called TCJA of
2017 led to years of record low employment, GDP growth, real
wage growth, and record high tax revenues. Families saw their me-
dian household incomes increase.
Real wages grew. Six million people were lifted out of poverty
and main street businesses saw $66 billion in tax revenues, all the
while tax revenues, federal tax revenues grew dramatically. That
is a record. That is a fact.
Now, Congress is working to deliver on the American first agen-
da in the so-called one big, beautiful bill, reconciliation bill which
will rein in—the plan is for it to rein in wasteful spending and re-
ignite our economic growth.
So, last week in our Small Business Committee hearing we heard
some testimony from witnesses that brought out that only 1 per-
cent of small businesses make a profit of over $1 million, so one
out of every hundred business makes less than in net income of $1
million.
That being said, do any of you believe that the TCJA was a
handout to billionaires, as is often stated?
Mr. Click?
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Mr. CLICK. No, definitely not, just by the sheer math of it, the
amount that goes out to the owners of the company. It was frac-
tionally impacted it.
Mr. MEUSER. I appreciate that.
Mr. BRASHERS. No, I don’t agree with that statement at all. I
think, as Mr. Click was saying, the exact opposite was true. It was
designed very specifically to avoid just being a giveaway to the very
rich and they, if anything, targeted the bottom half of the income
distribution more.
Mr. MEUSER. Thank you.
Mr. Akers?
Mr. AKERS. Not at all it. It dramatically impacted us and any-
thing that impacts us in a positive way creates more revenue,
which creates more taxes, which is a big cycle sending more money
back to D.C. So, it is positive for everybody the way that I see it.
Mr. MEUSER. Right. And something tells me that added rev-
enue that you gained went back not into your pocket but into the
business, which is pretty much what 100 percent of small busi-
nesses tell us.
Mr. AKERS. Absolutely true. The majority of it goes back to ei-
ther growing the business or funding more benefits for our staff.
Mr. MEUSER. Thank you.
Ms. Zimmerman, would you like to answer that?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Let me be clear. I think you misunderstand
me. I don’t want you to raise taxes on small businesses. I think
that would be a mistake, but it is not a black or white yes or no
question here.
You know, renewing the TCJA small business deduction does
nothing at all to fix the problem that we——
Mr. MEUSER. All right. I just really wanted a yes or no if it was
a tax cut for billionaires. Thank you.
The R&D expensing, how important, Mr. Click, is that to your
business as well as the bonus depreciation that would expire
should we not pass TCJA, that we know?
Mr. CLICK. Yes. The R&D will be more valuable as we go for-
ward in time. We had already done the development before that
was allowed.
But the bonus depreciation that is absolutely critical to the busi-
ness plans. It makes it a lot easier and if it is permanent it makes
it a lot easier to make that 10-year plan into a 20-year plan.
Mr. MEUSER. I couldn’t agree more, from my business experi-
ence as well as my time in the field working with small businesses
to our time on our Small Business Committee.
Mr. Brashers, same question?
Mr. BRASHERS. Yes, I think absolutely. So many small busi-
nesses have very thin margins and so if you are talking about tak-
ing a deduction away from them and if you started with the 2 per-
cent margin and then all of a sudden you take away this deduction
for your workers that are in R&D, all those supplies and materials
that are going into R&D, you take that away and you push it back
5 years or at least a portion of it, especially for small businesses
with limited access to capital it can be devastating.
Mr. MEUSER. Thank you.
Mr. Akers, same question?
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Mr. AKERS. Yes. It leads to growth and money from anywhere
it leads to growth for us and that leads to added benefits for every-
body up and down the system. So, when that money is sent back
to us, that extra depreciation, we reinvest it right back into the
business.
Mr. MEUSER. I have 40 seconds left. I am just going to ask each
one of you your thoughts on the president’s plan, the so-called
America first agenda, the taxes, the regulations, the making energy
that much more competitive, and as we move along with this tariff
issue, would you rather see an increase on let’s call them taxes on
foreign manufacturers or would you rather see an increase on taxes
American manufacturers?
Mr. CLICK. That’s a really tough question. You know, I am not
going to advocate for more taxes on foreign companies, but I think
if you set the stage for American companies to be successful we
will.
Mr. MEUSER. Great, thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Representative Olszewski from the great state of
Maryland for 5 minutes.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and to
fellow Members of both the House and Senate committees here.
I just want to open by saying as we have highlighted within this
committee and throughout this Congress, we know that small busi-
nesses are, in fact, the backbone of America, so thank you all for
the work that you do. Thank you for being our job generators.
Thank you for supporting economy as being fabrics to the com-
munity, even doing things like sponsoring local sports teams and
offering those unique goods and services that are so critical.
Two observations that I have today. You know, first of all, is as
we are talking about this idea of keeping taxes lower on our small
businesses and our producers, the silence on these tariffs, this
Trump tax is absolutely deafening. We are talking about how do
we lower taxes for our businesses at a time when we have just seen
the single largest tax increase enacted in peacetime history of the
United States. So, let that sink in.
We are having a hearing about how do we keep taxes low for our
small businesses when we are not talking at all or not pushing
back at all against the fact we just saw the largest tax increase in
peacetime history in the United States. I want to say, you know,
as we should come together in a bipartisan way to push back
against those tax increases, I come to this work and welcome the
opportunity to sustain some of these strategic investments in our
small businesses so that we can keep things moving.
But, you know, the facts of the matter are that these tax changes
in this law probably should be done more thoughtfully and com-
prehensively than an outright extension. The data shows that the
implementation of the current tax policy skews incredibly high to
the risks, the wealthy, the ultra-wealthy.
And so while perhaps not just for billionaires, the income of the
top 1 percent of Americans are seeing the average tax cut of
$60,000 a year under these provisions, which is fine until you com-
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pare it to the bottom 60 percent of Americans who saw a mere
$500 tax cut.
You know, we also know that this is failing to deliver the prom-
ised economic benefit. The Trump administration promised that by
a conservative estimate we would see a $4,000 boost in income but
new research is showing that workers who make $114,000 or less,
in fact, have seen no boost.
And so, I think I just wanted to share for the record that we wel-
come the opportunity to continue the investments we have heard
today, but I think we can do that without just writ large embracing
this wholesale extension that does not benefit all Americans.
So, I guess with that mind, if we were to be more thoughtful
about that, Ms. Zimmerman, could you just talk a little bit about
what in your view the kinds of impacts we might see on a small
business if instead of just merely extending and seeing this com-
pletely inequitable distribution of tax benefits that we were instead
to, sort of, incentivize work and expand and invest more in things
like the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, other things
that incentivize work but also support businesses and business
owners putting money back in the pockets of hard-working Ameri-
cans?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. I would say exactly. I would say that is what
this is all about. Again, I don’t want you to increase our taxes. I
don’t want you to increase any one of our small business taxes. We
are doing a lot of good work here on the ground and we are good
for the economy.
And coming out of the 2008 recession we led with the new jobs
being created, we being small businesses. So, we are going to need
that again because it looks like we are going to have to come out
of something again, right?
But to forget the fact that the TCJA gave absolutely twice the
tax savings to the large corporations in this country than they did
to any one of us on this panel misrepresents the whole concept of,
oh, you don’t want us to extend this?
Well, it is not that I want you to raise the tax. I want you to
do it smarter, do it better. Don’t not do it.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. Thank you for that, and we welcome the op-
portunity again to sustain the investments that do benefit our
small businesses while not giving those incredible benefits to large
corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
So, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back with that and say I welcome
the opportunity to really dig in and do this right as opposed to a
wholesale extension that only grows our deficit and misses the
mark on some of these important investments. Thank you.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Okay. The gentlemen yields back.
I now recognize Representative Downing from the great state of
Montana for 5 minutes.
Mr. DOWNING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I greatly appre-
ciate the House and Senate Small Business Committees hosting
this joint hearing today on such a critical issue.
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was a tremendous lifeline for
small businesses across the nation and especially in my home dis-
trict of central and eastern Montana, in particular, the estate tax
provisions.
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And I think there has been a false narrative that has been
played here that this is unduly affecting, you know, millionaires
and billionaires but the reality of it is in my district I have a lot
of small businesses that are farms and ranches that, you know, can
be, you know, land rich and cash poor.
And the estate tax provisions of the TCJA have been vital for
these small farmers and ranchers across my district. And by dou-
bling the estate tax threshold for individuals and married couples,
the Trump tax cuts have ensured that farmers and ranchers can
focus on their work and livelihoods rather than preparing for the
eventual tax punishments that will be inflicted on their grieving
families.
I am going to start with Mr. Brashers. In your testimony you ac-
curately point out that the estate taxes disproportionately impact
small farmers and ranchers who are, quote, ‘‘ land rich but cash
poor.’’
If the TCJA a estate tax provisions were to go away, you know,
what impact would this have on the continuation and the produc-
tivity of agricultural land across our nation? And something I
worry about is production agricultural land, you know, coming out
of production.
Mr. BRASHERS. Well, thank you so much for the question. The
reason that it matters so much for ranchers and farmers is that
you have this tax that is imposed on assets beyond a certain level.
And think about valuing those assets, think about the estate plan-
ning that has to go into that. It is very—as opposed to someone
that just has a large amount of cash. It is easier to think about es-
tate planning when you are just talking about cash but when you
are talking about a cash poor but asset rich——
Mr. DOWNING. Thank you for that. I am just going to move on
a little bit here. To what degree would you say our small farms and
ranches are forced to divert their resources away from farming and
into liquid assets, attorneys, and accountants?
Mr. BRASHERS. Yes. I mean, what you are going to end up hav-
ing is these family businesses, family farms, they have to break up
and in a lot of cases I can’t give you a specific statistic. I can look
into trying to find out those numbers for you, but it is, especially
for what you are doing with this, we are talking about a tax that
accounts for 0.6 percent of the federal budget. So, it is quite small
and there was no meaningful impact from expanding that exemp-
tion.
Mr. DOWNING. With this potential negative impact on agricul-
tural production, how do you believe that may or may not jeop-
ardize our national security and interests and increase our reliance
on foreign products?
Mr. BRASHERS. Yes. I mean, we are moving away from, kind
of, the small business model of Americans passing on their busi-
nesses, their farms, their ranches to themselves and they may
choose to sell that to foreign investors. That is absolutely a possi-
bility.
Mr. DOWNING. So beyond agriculture are there any other small
businesses or industries critical to national security that would be
impacted disproportionately by the expiration of these tax cuts?
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Mr. BRASHERS. The tax cuts broadly? So, yes, anyone involved
in research and development is going to be a critical one. Anyone
that is investing heavily is, especially where we are trying to get
companies to invest here in America, invest in new equipment and
machinery, these expensing provisions are critical for that.
Mr. DOWNING. Thank you.
Mr. Click, you rightfully labeled the estate tax as the, quote, ‘‘
survivor’s tax.’’ Given the impact that state taxes have on grieving
families shouldn’t we get rid of them altogether?
Mr. CLICK. Yes, absolutely. It makes no sense. You have already
paid taxes on all the money that you have earned, all the assets
that you have got. And as a company like the farmers with an il-
liquid asset in our inventory around the country you can’t just gen-
erate the cash to be able to pay that.
Mr. DOWNING. So, how would you have to adjust the operations
of your small business, Patriot aluminum products, if the TCJA es-
tate tax provision expires?
Mr. CLICK. For the company at large it just means more time
on planning and money spent on consultants and attorneys instead
of on inventory and employees.
Mr. DOWNING. I appreciate that.
Mr. Akers, you importantly highlight in your testimony that
small businesses are deeply involved in illiquid assets that are dif-
ficult to pay off like real estate and machinery. So, can you talk
more about how expansions to the estate tax could result in a li-
quidity crisis, as you mentioned in your testimony?
Mr. AKERS. Yes. Similar, just like farmers coming from the
Iowa, we have the same issue there. When you are investing in all
of those things you can’t turn that into cash overnight, so if you
end up having a death in the family that leads to one of those es-
tate planning issues that money has got to come from somewhere.
You cannot do that. You don’t have the liquidity to do that be-
cause your money’s invested in time, in land, and materials, equip-
ment, and that type of thing. So, it is critical and you will lose
farms and businesses by doing that.
Mr. DOWNING. Thank you for your answers. I have run out of
time so, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Representative Conaway from the great state of
New Jersey for 5 minutes.
Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for
holding this hearing today. I have been listening to a lot of the
commentary and questions and answers and I just want to make
a few comments.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 resulted in the deficit grow-
ing by $2 trillion, Now, that deficit is something that is going to
have to be dealt with and paid by average people all over this coun-
try while the benefits of that tax cut, as we know and has been
documented, went to the wealthiest people in the country, to the
billionaires and millionaires, and God bless them, It would be great
to have that kind of money.
And he would be even greater, as they do, to often pay zero in-
come taxes, which many people in this room, including yours truly,
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has to pay their taxes. And as Warren Buffett and others have
pointed out, what is the fairness of that?
When you look at these policies I think, and I hope the American
people will ask the question, does it seem fair to you? Are the bene-
fits of the policy that we are bringing forward being distributed in
a way that makes sense when you look at our entire population?
We are one nation after all.
And this Tax Cuts and Job Act certainly didn’t meet that test.
It was a test for me.
And this next round of this, or the renewal of this, we are hear-
ing now that we need to raise the debt ceiling by another $2 tril-
lion. And we are going to see the same, kind of, just amount dis-
tribution of the benefits of this. And historically, people ought to
know that in a developed economy such as ours with even robust
growth rates, that this tax cut, just this last one, will never be paid
for by the growth that is touted. Never happen.
Now, if you are an emerging economy where you can grow along
at a clip of 7 percent, 8 percent, yes, you can pay for a tax cut like
that. But in developed economies such as ours, United States, Eu-
rope, that kind of growth from what I am told by experts just will
not materialize. And so, the American people need to understand
that historical fact as they contemplate this next round of these
cuts.
In my state of New Jersey if these cuts, to pay for these cuts,
the kind of cuts that need to be made to Medicaid as an example,
$14 billion comes to the state of New Jersey to help pay for insur-
ance and a safety net that keeps a nursing home open for that
sandwich generation that are taking care of their kids, trying to get
them off to college and dealing with an elderly parent or other rel-
ative in a nursing home that will close if these Medicaid dollars do
not come back to our state.
We are a donor state after all. Can we make up for these to keep
these institutions open, hospitals, nursing homes by raising the tax
revenue in New Jersey? I think New Jersey will be like many other
states. We will find they won’t be able to do that.
And the expansion and access to health insurance under the
ACA, if these supports go away as the other side wants to do, we
will see a 10 percent increase in insurance that people have to pay
or people will go without and the number of uninsured in our soci-
ety certainly at large in New Jersey will increase significantly.
Talking about tax increases, the tariff represents nothing but a
tax increase on average people. We had an income tax in the mid-
1800s. We had tariffs as well and they decided to rebalance it be-
cause the tariffs were being paid for by the poorest people, the low
income people in the country.
And so they decided let’s change this around. We will reinstitute
an income tax and then 1 percent on $3,000 to $5,000 that would
be great, but we reduced the burden on regular people. That is
what happened.
Here we are, I guess, claiming that that era should be revisited
upon the American people yet again, even after the experience that
we ought to have with the Depression and the worldwide devasta-
tion that that caused driven by tariffs.
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Now, we have, Ms. Zimmerman, and I know you deal with the
IRS and I have got to get this question out really quickly, you deal
with them all the time. It has been starved of resources. If you
have a complicated tax situation you might get away without pay-
ing any taxes at all. Small businesses have to deal with them to
get their work done. Can you comment on the starvation that has
occurred to the IRS and what that means for your ability to run
your business and comply with the laws most people want to do?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, I have a few seconds so I will say that
we are losing about $700 billion in revenue by cutting back on the
IRS’ ability to enforce.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Okay, thank you. The gentlemen yields
back.
I now recognize Representative McIver from the great state of
New Jersey for 5 minutes.
Mrs. MCIVER. Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member for
convening this very important hearing today.
And thank you to each of our witnesses for being here today with
us. As mentioned over and over today, and even in previous hear-
ings, the small businesses are the backbone to our economy and we
must ensure that our tax policies support their growth.
Tax policy can often decide whether a small business entre-
preneur can hire workers, invest in themselves, their communities,
or even expand. For too long the tax code has favored large cor-
porations while small businesses are left carrying the brunt of tax
burdens without sufficient help.
This is especially true now as we see the continued gutting of the
Small Business Administration by the current administration in
the face of a severe economic uncertainty. We must work toward
a tax code that is fair and responsive to the needs of small business
owners and ensure the government is meaningfully here to provide
real assistance to businesses in need.
To Mr. Brashers, you were a contributor to Project 2025, which
the president began implementing on day one despite previously
saying he didn’t know anything about it. Since then, he has fol-
lowed its directives to the tee, gutting the Small Business Adminis-
tration with mass layoffs, implementing tariffs, and supporting a
budget that would destroy Medicaid and SNAP benefits all to cre-
ate a tax code that punishes the middle and lower class while only
benefiting the wealthy.
Do you agree, Mr. Brashers, that your Project 2025 has been a
failure for small businesses?
Mr. BRASHERS. I appreciate the question. I am primarily here
to talk about the expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Mrs. MCIVER. Is it a yes or no?
Mr. BRASHERS. I would disagree with that statement.
Mrs. MCIVER. Of course you would. Then why have small busi-
ness entrepreneurs lost millions in wealth this week alone as our
economy heads towards a recession? Why do you think that is hap-
pening?
Mr. BRASHERS. So, sorry, the Project 2025 was a collaborative
effort from many conservative institutions. I was a contributor to
that. It had a menu of options for a lot of different parts of the gov-
ernment. Some of those are being adopted, some of them are not
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being adopted, and that is something that the Heritage Foundation
has been a part of for many years, many decades going back to the
1980s.
So, I think scapegoating Project 2025 is not accurate.
Mrs. MCIVER. Going back to the question, in your opinion as a
contributor to Project 2025, what is your opinion why many small
business entrepreneurs lost millions this week and why are people
predicting that we are on our way to a recession?
Mr. BRASHERS. I mean, right now, obviously, we are looking at
there is some uncertainty because of the tariffs and that was a con-
scious decision of the administration that they understand that
they are trying to make deals and they are trying to negotiate on
this.
And so, I am personally not involved in the tariff discussions. I
don’t have any insights into that and a lot of people—there is a lot
of conversations presumably happening behind closed doors that I
am not aware of, so I am not going to speculate as to where this
all ends. And I think ultimately that is the most important thing
for businesses is what the final outcome of all this is.
Mrs. MCIVER. However, was tariffs mentioned in Project 2025
plan?
Mr. BRASHERS. As a matter of fact there were two ideas. There
were——
Mrs. MCIVER. Correct.
Mr. BRASHERS. On the tariff point there was a section that was
written that was pro-tariff and there was also a section that was
written that was anti-tariff.
Mrs. MCIVER. So, thank you for acknowledging a point that,
yes, there is a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and that is why we
are seeing many small entrepreneurs and small businesses lose
money this week and many predicting we will be into a recession.
I will say this in ending in my comments. Women lie, men lie,
but the numbers and the data don’t. With that, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Representative Morrison from the great state of
Minnesota for 5 minute.
Ms. MORRISON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Mem-
ber for holding the hearing.
And thank you to the witnesses for taking the time to testify
today. I just want to start by saying I think we all agree that we
want a tax system that benefits small businesses. Small busi-
nesses, as we have all said, are the backbone of our economy and
keep jobs in our communities.
But I believe a tax code that benefits our small businesses is a
tax code that pays also for the essential services that small busi-
nesses rely on. Millions of small business employees rely on Med-
icaid, for example. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid ex-
pansion has been crucial to decreasing the number of uninsured
business employees.
Between 2013 and 2022 an additional 2-1/2 million small busi-
ness employees received health insurance through Medicaid and
the uninsured rate of small business workers dropped by 9 percent.
The Republican budget that the Senate passed last week and
that the House will consider this week will require an $88 billion
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spending cut from the Energy and Commerce Committee which, by
definition, will have to target Medicaid.
Additionally, the ACA premium tax credits that help cover the
cost of premiums for health insurance and make health insurance
more affordable for small businesses are set to expire at the end
of this year. If we fail to extend these tax credits nearly 4 million
Americans will become uninsured, and the average premium pay-
ment will increase by 93 percent.
90 percent of small business owners report healthcare-related tax
credits are very important to their ability to afford health insur-
ance for themselves and for their employees.
So, Ms. Zimmerman, could you help explain how cuts to Medicaid
and the expiration of the ACA tax credits will impact small busi-
nesses?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Yes, thank you. It will definitely impact
small businesses. It will force small businesses to drop coverage
and lose employees to larger businesses. We will definitely lose
that competitive edge. We will have to absorb more cost cutting
into already thin margins or eliminating our ability to invest in
growth in our companies.
And, you know, wages are going to go down to compensate for
the extra cost in the benefit that. I think the smaller the business
the more impact it is going to have on them for sure. It is really
going to hurt main street.
Ms. MORRISON. Thank you. And you also during your testi-
mony mentioned, I know we have had a lot of tariff questions, but
I have to have a turn, too, that the tariffs announced last Wednes-
day have created uncertainty and unpredictability for small busi-
nesses.
Small businesses are particularly dependent on imports and rely
heavily on trade for components used in manufacturing. They lack
the negotiating power that larger corporations have and operate
with tighter margins than big businesses.
Can you speak to what you are hearing from small businesses
about how most recent tariffs will affect them? And what steps we
in Congress can take to help insulate small businesses from the
worst of these effects?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, Congress could take back the power of
the purse to the legislative branch and consider small businesses
in doing so. It has always been my understanding, I am not a his-
tory major, but I thought that was your job. Trying to figure out
what to buy now for the Christmas season so we can sell then, im-
possible right now, impossible.
Knowing that costs are going to go up, knowing that small busi-
ness owners knowing they can’t compete with the big businesses of
the world, we are going to very possibly get even more of a price
increase than the tariffs because we are going to have to com-
pensate for all the strangleholds the big businesses put on sup-
pliers.
And they are going to have to make it up somewhere and, you
know, threatening to quit with. I supplier doesn’t make a huge dif-
ference when you are a small business it doesn’t move the needle.
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Ms. MORRISON. Thank you so much for your testimony, and I
appreciate your reminder to Congress that we should take back the
power of the purse.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thanks again to the witnesses. I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Senator Justice and Baby Dog from the great
state of West Virginia for 5 minutes.
Senator JUSTICE. Okay. I have Baby Dog with me here, too, you
know, but she is outside. But I will just hold her right there for
just a few minutes, okay?
I had the luxury and the honor of being the governor of West Vir-
ginia the last 8 years, and I can tell you just this, and I can tell
you this as point blank as point blank can be.
Our small businesses in West Virginia are the backbone of us pe-
riod. And with all that, our small businesses are the backbone of
this entire country period. That is all there is to it
Now, I am a plain spoken guy. I challenge the media all the
time. You find something that knowingly I have told you is not
true, and they can’t do it because I am not going to do that. You
know, I was brought up in a way with my father that absolutely
I was expected to tell the truth and that is what I am going to do.
With that being said, we have got to extend these tax breaks and
these tax cuts. If we don’t, absolutely we are going to get in real
trouble. Absolutely our small businesses depend on this in every
way, and if we don’t watch out, you know, bad things could happen
and bad things could happen really soon.
Now, with that, I have tried in the state of West Virginia to do
anything and everything I could to provide additional tax breaks
or tax cuts. You know, I am really proud that when we were there,
you know, over the 8 years we cut taxes I think 26 different times
for all kinds of different things and a lot of different agencies.
But the one thing we never lost focus with was just how impor-
tant our small businesses really truly are and the fact that we have
got to keep them going and keep them going in a way that is abso-
lutely moving the ball and moving the ball forward.
Now, in addition to all that, you know, from a standpoint of a
pass-through, you know, by making it accessible that really and
truly we could pass through to the individual absolutely it is so, so
important.
And so with that being said, we have got to continue to do ex-
actly what we are doing or try to find even ways to make it even
better now.
And in regard to the estate tax, I have got a real quick story to
tell you and this is as true as true could ever be. You know, you
see I don’t speak from a bunch of notes. I speak, you know, from
experience and from the heart.
Now, the other thing is I didn’t come here as a 40-year-old look-
ing to be a Committee Chair, you know, or whatever it may be. I
came here to try to do one thing and that is in my own way shake
up the world.
You see we have got so much that we have got to do here and
there is so much that is screwed up about this town and absolutely
from the standpoint of all the goodness that can be done if we all
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focused on getting off of our soapboxes and getting off of the cam-
eras and really trying to do the job that we are supposed to do.
You see I never took anything, anything as the governor. I don’t
want anything now. I don’t want the next hot tip. I don’t want a
thing for me. I want to do what our forefathers did, and I am the
real deal on that.
You know, our forefathers stood up. Many of them lost their
farms. Many of them lost everything they had for this unbelievable
nation. And so with all that being said, that is what we all need
to be doing.
Now, I am not going to go on and on about that. I just want to
tell you just a story real quick. My dad died in 1993. He was an
only child. He lived in a little coal camp house and if you were
there, if you went there today, you know, that house has one bed-
room, one bathroom,
My mom she was one of 10 kids and they never, ever, my grand-
parents every time I ever visited them they never had indoor
plumbing. Now, so with all that being said, all of a sudden my dad
worked really hard with my mom and then he built a level of riches
that for all practical purposes we thought my dad was a wealthy
guy, you know. And all of a sudden he died.
And he had done all kinds of estate planning and everything else
and literally in 1993 I absolutely worked through all the wickets
and tried to some way keep our small family business.
And with all that being said, through all that we worked, and we
owned probably about 60 percent between he and I together of our
small family business.
Through all that literally I sold every single thing he had, every
single thing he had. And at the end of the day Jim Justice, Jimmy
Justice at the time, took care of my sister and literally paid all the
obligations, and it took about 3 years to be able to do it.
And what money flowed to me was zero.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman’s time is up.
Senator JUSTICE. So, I would tell you just this that it is the es-
tate planning there our small farms or whatever it may be, we got
to do that, too. So, I am with you. I am with you 1,000 percent I
thank you so much for letting me speak. Thank you.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlemen yields back.
I now recognize Representative Cisneros from the great state of
California for 5 minutes.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
Ms. Zimmerman, the Trump administration claims it wants to
restore U.S. manufacturing. The SBA even announced a Made in
America manufacturing initiative, but in your testimony you men-
tioned corporate tax loopholes.
Does our tax code incentivize large corporations to move produc-
tion back to the United States?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Not so much. If you have got enough plan-
ners in place you can save a lot of money by moving it in, moving
it out, and bringing it back. You can cut your tax rate to 10.5 per-
cent if you do what they call roundtripping. And, of course, I don’t
think any of us are doing that but the big companies certainly are
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because it is costing I believe $70 billion that would be available
for other programs.
Mr. CISNEROS. And do these corporate tax loopholes put domes-
tic small businesses that manufacture in the United States at a
disadvantage, in your opinion?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, certainly, because they don’t have the
same skills and finesse available to them that the large companies
do. And a lot of them being part of their community they may not
take advantage of them anyway because, you know, our employees,
as has been said here by my colleague next to me, they are a fam-
ily. We are not going to send those jobs overseas. So, yes, a definite
disadvantage.
Mr. CISNEROS. Right. And just, you know, the tax code I would
say for small businesses it is already complex and it is burden-
some. Did Elon Musk and DOGE cutting IRS staff, how is that
going to help small businesses at all?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. It is going to entirely make things worse. I
have advocated for a long time that we go back to having a small
business hotline where a small business who is trying to be compli-
ant can call in and get some information.
They were getting to a point where they could answer some ques-
tions, at least they could answer our calls and that is all gone
again with the cut in staffing.
Mr. CISNEROS. Yes. So, right now you would say, I guess again
in your opinion, that just with the cuts they are not going to be
more efficient and definitely they are not going to be more respon-
sive?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Well, they are definitely not going to be more
responsive, and they are not going to collect the dollars that we
need. Ironically, they are the one agency that pays for itself if you
let them enforce.
And so, it has just never been very logical to me why we would
cut that back. I think we are probably going to lose, the number
is huge, $700 billion I believe is the number by cutting back all
that enforcement that we just added for the IRS. And that enforce-
ment wasn’t aimed at small businesses. It was coming from the top
1 percent.
Mr. CISNEROS. Yes. And look, while my colleagues claim they
want tax cuts for small businesses they are also defending the
Trump tariffs. And I am sure you answered this question numerous
times, and I am going to ask you to answer it one more time just
to give a little emphasis there, but how are these tariffs, which are
really taxes, how are they going to impact small businesses?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. They are having a huge impact on small
businesses. They are causing to lose a competitive advantage
against big businesses who have negotiating power with their sup-
pliers that small businesses don’t have.
They are causing them not to be able to plan how much inven-
tory should I have in to meet the Christmas rush. Well, we have
no idea because we don’t know what the prices will be because we
don’t know what the tariffs will be because we don’t know anything
from day-to-day.
Mr. CISNEROS. Yes. With that, I thank you for your answers.
And with that, I yield back.
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Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
We are almost ready to close our hearing and I want to thank
everybody. Does anybody—if I give you 1 minute did you have any
closing arguments that you would like to say?
Mr. Click? Well, this is not a batting order, I mean, you—yes,
ma’am?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Very important to me, you know, I work with
Small Business for America’s Future and we support all small busi-
nesses. I am not by any means—some of the representatives and
senators here made it sound like we were adversaries. We are not.
We are in this for the same thing. We are helping our communities.
We really are.
But how we can say that just extending the TCJA is the best
thing is what gets me. I certainly don’t want tax increases. I want
an explanation of why the large companies in this country got
twice the tax cut that I got and my clients got when the law went
in.
And I would like that to be rebalanced so that we all can really
use the level playing field without smirking as a phrase. Thank you
for having me.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Next, 1 minute.
Mr. AKERS. Yes. We all have different opinions and different
viewpoints on how to make this happen but if small business is
truly the backbone of America, which has been expressed here by
both sides of the aisle, we have no choice. We have to figure out
how to get through this.
I can speak as my small business and as most of our friends. We
have seen a huge impact by the tax cuts that we have been able
to get, so we are going to continue to reinvest that as long as we
continue to have that benefit.
Secondly, I am going to pass my business down. The fact that I
can do it either easy or hard and how much money it is going to
cost is going to be directly impacted by what happens in this
forum. Thank you.
Mr. BRASHERS. I am actually going to agree with Ms. Anne
Zimmerman on something. I think we can improve on the TCJA.
I think there are things that can be done better and so I don’t
think it is necessarily something that should just be rubber
stamped exactly as it is.
So, I think this committee and Congress has a very important job
ahead to find ways to make it better, and I think it can. But with
that said, I do think that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as it was
passed was a tremendous success.
Some of the statistics out there that we haven’t had a chance to
mention, unemployment rate hit a 50-year low, labor force partici-
pation rate was growing at the fastest pace in 20 years, real me-
dian household income rose 7.8 percent in 2019, a record dating
back to 1954.
Homeownership was growing at the fastest rate in 15 years, U.S.
stocks were booming, and as I have mentioned earlier, the net
wealth of the bottom 50 percent was actually at the highest level
since pre-Great Recession.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Okay.
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Mr. BRASHERS. The poverty rate was down so it was a tremen-
dous success, and I think we can actually improve that.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you.
Mr. Click, you are our fourth place hitter, cleanup hitter.
Mr. CLICK. Thank you, sir.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you.
Mr. CLICK. Yes, I think there is a lot we can agree on. I think
there are definitely opportunities to improve. I do think it is critical
though to extend the existing TCJA right now, keep those in place,
give some certainty to these businesses.
Keep in mind that, you know, small businesses are the backbone
of America’s economy. We create the jobs that pay the taxes. We
are the engine of growth that is going to keep growing the country
and the growth of the innovation.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Okay, thank you.
And our last person to be heard from is Congresswoman
Goodlander from the great state of New Hampshire for 5 minutes.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our witnesses for being here today. There is
a lot that we agree on. I want to start by asking each of you do
you agree that our tax code is too complicated and the compliance
burdens are too great?
Mr. CLICK. Yes.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Yes.
Mr. AKERS. Yes.
Mr. BRASHERS. Yes.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Ms.——
Chairman WILLIAMS. Yes.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Ms. Zimmerman, can I get a yes? Okay,
thank you.
I want to ask you, Mr. Click, how much time and energy by way
of resources does your small business have to dedicate to tax com-
pliance?
Mr. CLICK. Yes, it is a lot. I mean, we have a professional CPA
firm and we have professional staff, an absolutely fantastic person
in the company who had years in public accounting to help us
grow. And without her I don’t think we would be where we are
here today.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Well, Ms. Zimmerman, you shared with us
in your written testimony that the Section 199(a) deduction is so
complex that the vast majority of small business owners actually
cannot determine if they qualify. Many, far too many, can’t deter-
mine if they qualify and far too many can’t take advantage of this.
Can you speak to, from your perspective, what you believe Con-
gress should be doing in the days ahead to address these dispari-
ties which really hurt small businesses overwhelmingly?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Balance the tax cuts between big business
and small business, simplify the code, give some first employee
credits to give some immediate relief to people trying to enter the
employer field, staff the IRS, those are a number of them.
Ms. GOODLANDER. I appreciate that. You also testified to the
need to close a series of loopholes in our tax code. What top three
loopholes would you advise Congress to take a hard look at closing?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Oh——
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Ms. GOODLANDER. Or maybe just your top loophole? I come
from the Live Free or Die state. We are not big on loopholes.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Yes. If I had to pick the top one I would
probably say roundtripping. I think that, which allows corporations
to pay actually a 10-1/2 percent tax instead of 21 so they are lower
than even our lowest rate or right down there with it, and that
costs us about $70 billion a year.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Thank you for that. Can we all agree that
tariffs are taxes?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Yes.
Mr. CLICK. I don’t think so, no.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Okay.
Well, I will ask you, Ms. Zimmerman, because you noted in your
testimony that the pervasive feeling of uncertainty that small busi-
nesses are feeling I hear it every single day from small businesses
all across my state. The uncertainty is crippling. The uncertainty
is bad for the bottom line.
Can you speak to what you are hearing from small businesses
about what threats of trade wars and tariffs that are being im-
posed have had on our small businesses around the country?
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. Yes. They are absolutely afraid that it is
going to cut into the small business share of business in this coun-
try because they are going to get hit the worst by tariffs, increasing
prices from the tariffs because they aren’t able to negotiate like the
big companies.
They just don’t have the same ability to do that. Their suppliers,
when you are 0.1 percent of your supplier instead of 50 percent of
your supplier guess what? They don’t listen to you. They don’t ne-
gotiate with you.
And so that is going to make a huge difference to main street,
huge.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Well, thank you for that.
I would like to enter into the record an article from the Concord
Monitor about the Viking House, which is a small business in Con-
cord, New Hampshire, in my district. It shares the story of Emily
Glavin who runs this small business. She has been doing so over
for over a decade.
She weathered the COVID-19 pandemic. She put her heart and
soul into this business. And what she sees is clear, and I think it
is clear to many of us in this room today that the costs from these
tariffs, as she put it, ‘‘ will be passed on to us.’’ And I think she
is right.
Simply put, these tariffs are taxes on hard-working people and
on small businesses, on consumers, and on American families who
are going to be paying the cost for trade wars, senseless trade
wars.
Ms. ZIMMERMAN. A it is going to put some of the small busi-
nesses out of business.
Ms. GOODLANDER. It sure will. Well, I thank you for your tes-
timony today.
And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
And I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony. I want
to make sure nobody runs over each other trying to get to that
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bathroom now we when we leave, but I want to thank you for ap-
pearing before both the House and the Senate committees today.
Now, without objection, Members have 5 House legislative days
until April 30 to submit additional materials and written questions
for the witnesses to the Chair. Those questions will be forwarded
to the witnesses. I ask the witnesses to please respond promptly.
And again, thank you for being here. We appreciate it very
much.
And if there is no further business, without objection, the joint
committee hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the Joint Committees were ad-
journed.]
[Ms. Anna Zimmerman did not respond to questions in a timely
manner.]
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APPENDIX
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Æ
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File and source
- File
- CHRG-119hhrg60081.pdf
- Size
- 51,170,686 bytes
- SHA-256
- 7baf675f21c7eecaee889bcc13f8e49d5d36f3c4358f282079f3f062da799b64
- Our copy
- CHRG-119hhrg60081.pdf
- Original
- www.govinfo.gov