Hillary Clinton Announces Plan to Boost Small Businesses

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton announced a plan she would introduce as president to boost small businesses. She introduced her plan in an article for LinkedIn followed by a teleconference with members of the press and several small business owners. Clinton warned of Donald Trump’s past business practices with small businesses arguing that a Trump presidency would not be good for small business owners. The comprehensive plan builds on her overall economic plan which would create millions of jobs by investing in infrastructure upgrades and clean energy. Small businesses play into her overall plan as they will provide American workers and products. An outline of the plan is below and the full plan is available on The Briefing.

1. Make it easier to start a business and become profitable
   • Push states to make it faster and cheaper to start a business
   • Working with states to standardize licensing requirements
   • Making technical assistance and resources available to states
   • Provide incubators, mentoring, and training to 50,000 entrepreneurs and small business owners in underserved communities
2. Make it easier to get financing and find investors
   • Streamline regulation and cut red tape for community banks and credit unions
   • Harness the potential of online lending platforms
   • Reduce the burden of student debt by allowing entrepreneurs to defer student loan payment
   • Promote the 100% tax exclusion on capital gains for long-term small business investments
   • Expand and streamline the SBA’s Small Business Investment Company program
   • Support new innovative ways to assess creditworthiness for small business owners
   • Expand access to credit in underserved communities
   • Give the SBA administrator the authority to continue providing 7(a) loan guarantees to small businesses
   • Expand access to working capital by expanding the SBA’s working capital guarantee programs
3. Make it cheaper and faster to file taxes and pay for tax relief
   • Work to create a new standard deduction for small businesses
   • Allow 4 million small businesses with gross receipts under $1 million to take advantage of “checkbook accounting”
   • Allow small businesses to immediately expense up to $1 million in new investments
   • Quadruple the start-up tax deduction to significantly lower the cost of starting a business
4. Make it easier to offer health care and other benefits to employees
   • Simplify and expand the healthcare tax credit
   • Allow more small businesses pool together to offer retirement plans
5. Make it easier to work with the federal government
   • Work to completely revamp the digital experience for small businesses
   • Use the leverage of more than $400 billion in federal government contracting to encourage businesses to pay their suppliers in full and on time
   • Guarantee a 24-hour response time to small businesses with questions about federal regulations and access to capital programs
   • Ensure that Small Business Development Centers are placed in the highest-need communities with staff that speaks the language of local residents
   • Work to ensure that federal regulations aren’t unnecessarily holding small businesses and our economy back
   • Increase federal contracting opportunities for women-owned, minority-owned, and veteran-owned small businesses
   • Defend and strengthen the Export-Import Bank
   • Encourage small business exports by expanding SBA funding for export development
6. Make it easier to fight back when you’re getting stiffed

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

News Source: LinkedIn, The Briefing, Bloomberg, Forbes

Clinton Campaign Calls for Trump’s Tax Returns

On Thursday, Hillary for America released information and a new television ad calling the lack of tax returns from Donald Trump into question. While Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine have made their tax returns public, Trump has yet to do so. View the ad and read the HFA’s release below.

Donald Trump’s Tax Returns: What’s He Hiding?

For 40 years, major party nominees have publicly released their tax returns – a simple and basic disclosure, made to the American people as they determine which candidate is best fit for the presidency. In accordance with this decades-old tradition, Hillary Clinton has made nearly 40 years of tax returns available to the public over the course of her career, dating back to 1977. You can find the past 9 years of her returns here.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump refuses to release his tax returns, despite his promise in 2014 that he “absolutely” would release them if he ran for president. Watch Trump promise to release his returns here.

TRUMP: “If I decide to run for office, I’ll produce my tax returns, absolutely, and I would love to do that.” 

Of course, Trump changed his mind when he actually became a candidate for president.

TRUMP: “I want to release my tax returns but I can’t release it while I’m under an audit.”

TRUMP: “There’s nothing to learn from them.”

TRUMP: “It’s none of your business.”

Contradicting his own logic, Trump has released his tax returns while under audit in the past – when the disclosure of his tax returns would benefit his business interests – such as his application for a license to open a casino.

CNN: “Donald Trump insists he won’t release his tax returns during his 2016 presidential run because those returns are the subject of ongoing Internal Revenue Service audits.  When he’s had casinos on the line, it’s been a different story.”

Further, Trump has the ability to slow down the audit of his tax returns depending on his rate of response to the IRS – meaning he may be able to make his poor excuse, that his audit prevents his tax return disclosure, last as long as he wants.

WSJ: “Donald Trump says he will release his tax returns when an IRS audit concludes… the Republican presidential nominee omits one major point: He and his attorneys have substantial knowledge about when the audit will end and some ability to slow the process.”

Considering Trump has released his taxes under audit before, and his actions determine the speed at which the IRS can complete the audit, why won’t Trump release his tax returns and what is he hiding? Here’s a few theories:

1. Trump may not be worth the $10 billion that he claims
2. Trump may pay little to no income tax
3. Trump is deeply in debt and owes a hundred million to a foreign bank
4. Trump wrongly under values his properties to local tax men
5. Trump is making a “flood of cash” from running for president
6. Trump is taking tax breaks he shouldn’t
7. Trump is hiding his lack of charitable donations

Here’s 5 FACTS we know about Trump’s tax returns:

1. In multiple years in which we know Trump’s tax rate, he paid a rate of 0%
2. Trump promised millions in charity, but reportedly gave less than $10,000 over a period of 7 years
3. Trump has accepted a grant intended for small businesses affected by 9/11
4. Trump has repeated accepted a tax break intended for middle-class people
5. Trump might not even be undergoing an audit in the first place – and he refuses to present a letter from the IRS, sent to every individual who is audited, to prove it

Prominent Republicans question what Trump is hiding in his tax returns:

George Will: “Perhaps one more reason why we’re not seeing his tax returns is because he is deeply involved in dealing with Russian oligarchs.”

Mitt Romney: “Either he’s not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is” or “There’s a bombshell in Donald Trump’s taxes.”

Mark Sanford: “I Support You, Donald Trump. Now Release Your Tax Returns.”

Is there ANY way to make Trump release his tax returns?  Yesterday, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Member Chris Murphy are calling for the Senate to vote on their bill, the Presidential Tax Transparency Act, to require presidential nominees to release their tax returns after their conventions.

In the meantime, media, pundits, and Americans across the country continue to challenge Trump to release his tax returns.

New York Times: Letters to the Editor: “Why Won’t Trump Release His Taxes?”

Washington Post Editorial: “Even Mike Pence appears to disagree with Trump on releasing tax returns”

Huffington Post: “Even Donald Trump’s Supporters Are Telling Him To Release His Tax Returns”

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.