BizBox Blog on Slate

Sales Down, Profits Up

2009-11-09T14:26:08Z

Another day, another set of bad numbers for the nation's small businesses. In the past fiscal year (October to October), sales at small businesses--defined, fairly reasonably, as private companies with annual revenues of under $10 million--saw sales drop almost 4%. And yet, as also seems to be the case, another day, another silver lining: profits at these same businesses over the same timeframe rose 6.5%. Looks like entrepreneurs have remembered that a dollar saved is a dollar earned.

It's notable that profit margin also rose during this time--it sort would have to, of course, given that profits rose on less revenue. And where did the cuts come from? Well, overhead was down a bit. But down far more was, yes, payroll expenses. That fact might help to explain the dispiriting 10.2% unemployment figure. But it also helps to explain small businesses' continued solvency, despite all the challenges they've faced over the past year.

What You Should Be Reading

2009-11-06T22:40:15Z

The NFL season continues apace, and with it, the Redskins' utter ineptitude.

Money for your clean-tech business. How to land some of those federal stimulus dollars. [OPEN Forum]

Get to know the 8(a). Rieva Lesonsky educates you about the lesser-known Small Business Administration lending program. [AllBusiness]

Getting your wings. How to navigate angel investors. [NYT]

The small business bailout. Journalist Jon Cook considers President Obama's lending plan. [Entrepreneurial]

Microlending Program To See 60% Default

2009-11-06T15:47:38Z

Well, we were skeptical of America's Recovery Capital from the beginning. The program has the Small Business Administration guaranteeing 100% of small loans (capped at $35,000) made to "viable" small businesses that are trying to pay off pre-existing debt. We wondered how useful the program was; we wondered whether it was really trying to help small businesses or banks; and we wondered whether banks would participate without much incentive to do so. Now, today, the Washington Post reports that 60% (!) of all ARC loans are expected to default.

Turns out the program's genesis was as a way to help the noble lobstermen of Maine--which is to say, to garner the crucial vote of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Me.) back when the stimulus act, which estabished ARC, was being debated last winter. But now, it's a shambles. The good news is that only a quarter-billion was devoted to the program (which, in federal-outlay terms, isn't all that much). The bad news is that it's going to be very difficult to halt it prematurely. The only use ARC can have is as a warning to discourage similar, future programs. So don't forget the foul acronym!

Here Come the Credit Unions

2009-11-05T22:20:43Z

OPEN Forum (published by our sponsor, American Express OPEN) runs a good primer on credit unions, and why they are probably a very good borrowing option for you if you are a small business. (The post does note the prime downside to credit unions: in order to borrow from one, you generally first need to be a member.)

The post got us thinking about whatever happened to that credit union bill? The one that would allow them to devote a far greater portion of their resources to small-business lending? If policymakers wish to signal that they truly do care about small businesses' credit situation, and that they are capable of thinking somewhat creatively, they could do worse than to make that bill law.

Homepreneurship!

2009-11-05T19:30:31Z

How have we never come across this word before? It turns out that "homepreneurs"--those who run their own home-office businesses--account for 13 million jobs. Over one-third of such businesses generate over $125,000 in annual revenue; 8% generate over $500,000. They may not be the mom-and-pop hardware store on Main Street, but these are small businesses, too, and as such, we would hope that federal policy is geared toward helping them thrive. One good first step would be to simplify the home-office deduction; another would be to make the self-employment tax fair. Any other ideas from our homepreneur readers?

4 Owners, 1 Woman

2009-11-05T15:58:21Z

The New York Times confirms what we would already have suspected: over one quarter of all businesses are owned by women. Of course, the next step is apprising the powers that be, including the Small Business Administration (which is also run by a woman, Karen G. Mills), of this fact. Woman-owned businesses still do not receive their (meager) 5% quota of federal contracts; they are still disadvantaged by a biased health-care system; and meanwhile there numbers are, if anything, only growing. It's time everyone took a bit more notice.

A Tale of Community Banking

2009-11-04T18:03:58Z

MSNBC runs a fantastic little story on the small businesses of Westwood, N.J. and how they have come to rely on the local, publicly owned community bank to get them through the months and years. (The community bank in question, it should be noted, was wise enough to stay away from the junk real estate loans that have helped cause the failure of 100 banks in 2009.) It's especially fascinating to hear all this stuff from the businesses' perspectives, straight from their owners' mouths. When times are tough, the consensus advice--and we ourselves have given it--is: first, slash payroll. But small business owners don't particularly want to lay anyone off, since their employees are, in the words of the restaurant owner interviewed, "family". Fortunately, it seems these owners' relationship to their employees is similar to the community banks' relationship to these businesses.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

New Bill Would Mandate Sick Days

2009-11-04T14:54:47Z

We have a prophet in our midst! Or perhaps a real mover and shaker. Yesterday, the New York Times's crack labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse, made the case for mandatory paid sick days based on the public-health risk presented by millions of workers coming into their offices on days when they should be at home, both nursing themselves back to health and, what's more, minimizing the chances that one of their co-workers catches what they have. Needless to say, the current H1N1 issue only amplifies the wisdom of this. Despite the fact that federal employees have paid sick leave, and that the Centers for Disease Control strongly advocate, roughly 40% of private-sector workers do not receive it. (In case you were wondering Wal-Mart contains a combination of paid sick leave and surprisingly punitive sticks for missing work.)

We don't know if Rep. George Miller (D-Ca.), the powerful chair of the House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee, read Greenhouse's article, but yesterday (as reported today by--who else?--Greenhouse), Miller introduced a bill that would guarantee five paid sick days in for workers who are sent home by their employees due to illness. The bill actually appears geared toward meeting the specific swine flu threat rather than the broader problem--it is called the Emergency Influenza Containment Act. It would also not required paid sick leave for employees who decide on their own that they are too ill to attend to work. Still, better than nothing?

A final note. The bill would also not apply to those businesses with under 15 employees--that is, the smallest of small businesses. We hope that most of those businesses, while appreciating the legislation's acknowledgement of their special circumstances, nonetheless makes the right move and, for the good of their employees, their businesses, and themselves, makes sure that workers who may have something to spread don't feel that they need to risk spreading it.

Helping the Economy By Improving Hiring

2009-11-03T23:07:04Z

The New York Times Op-Ed page lends its prominent space to an argument that broader policy should be geared toward enabling small businesses to start hiring again. The author, a Moody's economist, enters the small-business-jobs debate decidedly on the side of the notion that, in his words, "Small businesses are especially vital to job growth." He further argues that increased hiring will be the most efficient marker toward righting the economy as a whole (which makes sense, when you consider that the employed tend to be more apt to spend money than the un- or partially employed). So what does he favor to do this?

For one, he seems to agree with President Obama that the ceiling on Small Business Administration loans should be raised (he also advocates increasing the portion of these loans that the SBA guarantees to, in some cases, as high as 97.5%). He also wants the stimulus program's special carry back provision to be extended. We're glad these issues are now grabbing space in the Times. From its pages to legislators' eyes!

Community Banks Ready for Primetime

2009-11-03T17:19:35Z

Two articles make it clear that--especially in the wake of President Obama's new small business lending plan, which involves them prominently--the community banks, those locally-focused institutions with under $1 billion in assets, are feeling newly empowered. The Washington Post reports that the community banks marshaled their numbers in order to influence the course of banking regulatory reform in their favor. And the New York Times reports that the banks have seen a marketing and advertising opening now that the big banks have discredited themselves in the public eye so. The real-life slogan "Real Texans Bank Locally" perhaps says it all.

It's worth noting that the community banks' fortunes tend to be closely tied to that of small businesses generally. For one thing, in many cases community banks are themselves small businesses. But more importantly, they are frequently more inclined to lend to small businesses, particularly smaller ones with objective numbers that may not indicate that they are fabulous loan opportunities. Small businesses should be pulling for the community banks. And it seems that, finally, they have something to celebrate.

The IRS's New Agenda

2009-11-03T15:19:17Z

It’s back! Actually, it never went away. It’s the issue of worker classification, or rather, misclassification. I’ve written about this matter before. (On employment-tax penalties, on independent contractors, and, again, on independent contractors. Hey, it's an important issue!) And now it’s a high priority item for the Internal Revenue Service, which just announced an audit initiative to study compliance with payroll taxes.

Why now? The IRS initiative comes on the heels of renewed Congressional interest in worker misclassification, and an August 2009 report issued by the Government Accountability Office.

The IRS is planning to use 200 to 300 of experienced and specially trained agents to conduct these audits of approximately 6,000 companies over the next three years. The companies selected at random will represent a broad cross-section of sizes and industries.

But this new IRS initiative is not just about worker classification. In addition, the IRS says, the audits will also focus on:

* Fringe Benefits: whether taxable benefits are misclassified as non-taxable, such as an employee using a company car to commute to and from work.

* Reimbursed Expenses: whether payments made by employers to reimburse employees for qualified business expenses made pursuant to an “accountable plan” that meets certain requirements, including proper accounting and reasonableness, are not actually taxable compensation.

* Officer Compensation: whether compensation paid to an owner/employee of an S corporation is “reasonable” and not improperly classified as a distribution of profits on which no payroll taxes are paid.

* Non-filers: Always!

Tax experts say that the focus of the initiative is to close the “tax gap," or the difference between taxes owed and taxes collected. Unemployment taxes are the second largest contributor to the tax gap, with underreporting of income by individuals being first.

If you’re at all concerned, maybe it’s time to conduct an internal compliance review and to talk to your tax advisor. There’s still time to prepare.

Jerry Kalish is founder and President of National Benefit Services, Inc., a Chicago-based employee benefit consulting and administrative firm that serves private-held companies, publicly traded companies, and public sector employers. He blogs at The Retirement Plan Blog and can be reached at jerry@nationalbenefit.com.

SBA Head Mills Talks to the Times

2009-11-02T20:42:07Z

A lot of non-answer answers in the New York Times interview with Karen G. Mills, the head of the Small Business Administration. "But when the market collapsed, so did S.B.A. lending. Is there a better way to do it?" the Times asks, and while the real answer to that question would involve acknowledging that focusing on supplying credit when demand for credit was historically weak, Mills instead gives some boilerplate about the SBA working with banks. The Times questioner pressed on--generally, the paper did a bang-up job with this--and Mills changed the subject to the 23% federal-contract quota--which is important, but the fact is that the SBA as currently constituted (and, especially, as currently funded!) has really little power to do much to get each of the individual federal agencies to meet their procurement quotas.

In fact, much of the problem is with the way the SBA is established rather than its specific players. It is jerry-rigged to help banks lend to small businesses, and to help small businesses borrow from banks. That's a pretty narrow mandate, and it's one that happens not to be ideal to recessions. The one thing the SBA can that doesn't require too much extra funding or new legislation is to use its clout to advocate for federal policies in other areas that are likely to help small businesses. Mills does a great job with that here, advocating for the sort of insurance exchanges envisioned by the health-care reform bills. In that sense, then, the interview was a success.

CIT: Habemus Bankruptcy!

2009-11-02T15:06:04Z

Well, small-business lender CIT's game of chicken with its lenders--in which it has been trying to coax more loans out of them by threatening a prepackaged bankruptcy filing--appears over, with a CIT victory, of sorts: the company filed one of the largest Chapter 11s in history, and expects to emerge from bankruptcy protection, this time in the ownership mainly of its current creditors, before the end of the year. (That $4.5 billion loan it secured last week remains operative. Indeed, the company also accepted a $1 billion loan from famed financier Carl Icahn over the weekend, which should serve to neutralize him as a threat to the company's plans.) The lender's creditors expressed support for the plan late last night.

The big losers in this are CIT's current stakeholders, which includes, well, you: the federal government invested $2.3 billion in the company as part of last fall's bailout; most if not all of that stake will be wiped out by the end of the Chapter 11 process.

But among the big winners might surprise you: none other than those small businesses that in the past looked to CIT as its lender. In the short run, while a few businesses that rely on CIT for factoring may find themselves in deep trouble, most will actually be saved by CIT's ability to continue to operate through its bankruptcy. And all of these companies, needless to say, are better off than if CIT faced outright insolvency, including a Chapter 7.

More importantly, in the long run, the New York Times hypothesizes, "It also means the end of CIT’s efforts to transcend its roots as a sleepy financier of retailers, restaurants and manufacturers." This is great! We never wanted CIT to transcend itself! We want it to be a "sleepy financier"! If the credit boom of this past decade found the banks--and, microcosmically, CIT--ignoring small business for the big ones, then perhaps the post-recession economy will witness a refocusing on those "sleepy" businesses and the relatively safe borrowing they do.

Definition of 'Small Business' Greatly Expanded

2009-10-30T19:32:22Z

We frankly don't know enough about the retail and hospitality industries to pass sure judgment on the Small Business Administration's decision to change its standards so as to allow more, bigger businesses in those industries to claim to be small businesses, and therefore to be eligible for various federal small-business programs (so the Washington Business Journal reports). Maybe office supplies are priced in such a way that stores with $30 million in annual revenue are still small businesses? (Seriously, we really don't know: if you do, please tell us in the comments.)

All that said, color us skeptical of this move. At a time when SBA loan programs are only expanding, and especially at a time when the federal government continues to fail to meet its legally-mandated quota of small-business contracts, now does not strike us as the ideal time to institute radical expansions of the ranks of small businesses.

A Don't-Do List

2009-10-30T15:25:07Z

Generally, we're big on to-do lists. Short and simple (and easy to read!), they can be very helpful, offering direct bullet-points of instructions worth following. So we're taking a risk here in linking to You're The Boss's ... well, you might call it a don't-do list. In other words, if you do do these things, you're putting your company at risk. So, you know, don't do them.

What we most like about the list is its mix of the big and small, and, for lack of better terms, highbrow and the lowbrow. So, don't understate your vaule when it comes to insurance; and, don't allow your employees who are using company vehicles, or vehicles on company time, to text while driving. Make sure your accountant fills all your needs; and also, use only three-pronged electric cords. Part of being a small business owner is prioritizing. But another part of it is knowing that even the smallest things matter!