Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday it has notified 1,000 companies of upcoming audits of their I-9s, forms that new employees complete, and of the identification documents those employees provided to show they are eligible to work in the U.S.

“The inspections will touch on employers of all sizes and in every state in the nation — no one industry is being targeted nor is any one industry immune from scrutiny,” ICE said in a statement. The agency declined to name the businesses to be inspected.

The latest round of audits will differ slightly from previous ones. Agents previously were told to audit a certain number each of small, medium and large businesses, said Dawn Lurie, who advises businesses on immigration compliance.

But this time agents are being encouraged to investigate larger companies if that’s where tips and leads are pointing them. A new Employment Compliance Inspection Center in the Washington suburb of Crystal City, Va., means they’ll have more auditors and other resources for those larger investigations.

Audits are usually performed at the state in which a company is headquartered, but agents are being told they can audit other parts of the company if their records review shows there may be problems beyond the headquarters, Lurie said.

Read more at: Bloomberg BusinessWeek

President Barack Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act into law, calling it “the most significant step on behalf of our small businesses in more than a decade.”

The legislation also is likely the last legislative victory the president will see for a while. Congress is limping home at the end of this week, putting off any more big decisions until after the November 2 congressional elections—contests that could shift control of at least one side of Capitol Hill to Republicans.

In order to grow the economy, Obama said it “was critical that we cut taxes and make more loans available to entrepreneurs.” Today, he said, ”after a long and tough fight, I am signing a small-business jobs bill that does just that.”

The law takes several steps intended to make credit easier to obtain:

•It provides $30 billion in cheap capital to community banks for use in making small-business loans. This idea was first proposed by the president nearly a year ago, during a visit to a warehouse in suburban Maryland.
•It temporarily raises the government guarantee on the Small Business Administration’s flagship loans to 90 percent and waives fees on 7(a) and 504 loans. These breaks are expected to produce a boom in SBA lending in the fourth quarter by making these loans less risky for lenders and more affordable for borrowers.
•It increases the size limits on SBA loans—small businesses now will be able to get a $5 million 7(a) loan, for example, compared with the previous limit of $2 million.
•Small businesses with unfavorable terms on their commercial real estate loans now will be able to refinance these loans through the SBA’s 504 program.
•Small businesses also will benefit from the bill’s $12 billion in targeted tax cuts.

Read more: Portfolio.com

First lady Michelle Obama addresses the National Restaurant Association’s board of directors

Paul Frumkin writes in Nation’s Restaurant News that First lady Michelle Obama called on restaurateurs to help put an end to childhood obesity in an address made Monday to the National Restaurant Association’s board of directors at their fall meeting in Washington, D.C.

Thanking those in the foodservice industry who already have made an effort to address the problem, Obama urged restaurateurs to go even further.

“The reality is, it’s just not enough,” she said. “Together we have to do more. We have to go further. And we need your help to lead the effort.”

NRA president and chief executive Dawn Sweeney also addressed the gathering, emphasizing that consumers are demanding more healthful options.

“The restaurant industry is responding to consumer preferences by providing options for their tastes and dietary needs,” Sweeney said. “Offering more menu choices, cooking with healthier ingredients, and providing nutrition information for guests are just a few of the ways restaurants are answering consumers’ interest in more healthful food options.”

Noting that one-third of all meals today are eaten in restaurants, the first lady urged operators to use their creativity to reduce the number of empty calories Americans consume. And while “we are programmed to crave sugary, fatty, salty foods,” she added, “with a little persistence and creativity, we can also turn them on to higher quality, healthier foods.”

Obama also recommended that restaurateurs offer more healthful menu options for children, adding, “most kids’ menus look pretty much the same.” She cited one survey that found that “90 percent of [children’s] menus includes mac and cheese,” while 80 percent includes chicken fingers and 60 percent includes burgers or cheeseburgers.

“Some options weigh in at over 1,000 calories, and that’s close to the recommended amount that a child should have for the entire day,” she said.

“That’s why I want to challenge every restaurant to offer healthy menu options and then provide them up front so that parents don’t have to hunt around and read the small print to find an appropriately sized portion that doesn’t contain high levels of fat, salt and sugar.”

The first lady told operators she was not “asking any of you to make drastic changes to every single one of your recipes or to totally change the way you do business. But what I am asking is that you consider reformulating your menu in pragmatic and incremental ways to create healthier versions of the foods that we all love.”
Read more: Nation’s Restaurant News

President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner

David Lightman writes in McClatchy Newspapers that Lonny and Robin Kocina started their business in the laundry room of their house more than 20 years ago, and they now employ about 45 people. However, they worry that Washington lawmakers are about to stifle their effort to keep their business growing.

When members of Congress return to Washington on Monday after a nearly monthlong recess, Topic A will be taxes.

Should the Bush-era tax cuts be extended? Should the top individual income-tax rates, now 33 and 35 percent, return to the pre-2001 levels of 36 and 39.6 percent, as President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders want?

House Minority Leader John Boehner said Sunday he is willing to back tax cuts only for the middle class if that’s the only option he’s got – though he emphasized it would be “bad policy,” and that he wants Bush-era cuts extended for everyone.

The Ohio Republican, who stands to be Speaker if Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives this fall, wants to maintain the lower rates in the top two brackets that affect the wealthy.

His view is a signal that Democratic leaders in the House could have an easier-than-expected path to passage before the November election. But the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to limit debate, will be a tougher task. Three Democrats have said they want all the cuts extended. Democrats control 59 seats.

Read more: McClatchy Newspapers

More than a year later, the program was finally launched — as a $21 million effort.

The program is one of several small-business lending initiatives developed by the administration that have struggled to get off the ground. Meanwhile, lending to these companies has fallen. Federal data show that lending to small businesses by community banks declined by about $8 billion, or 2 percent, between September 2008 and September 2009.

Administration officials say helping small businesses get credit remains a top priority. It is a critical component of the strategy to address the nation’s high unemployment. More than half of all U.S. workers are at companies with fewer than 50 employees. Without access to loans, many of these firms are laying off workers or shutting their doors altogether.

Obama’s economic team has put forward several major programs to increase small-business lending.

The first, unveiled in March 2009, focused on helping the SBA get loans into the hands of small businesses. This initiative proposed spending $15 billion to aid the markets that provide the financing for SBA loans. But in the months after the government’s announcement, these markets recovered on their own, administration officials say. As a result, there was no need for a more expensive program.

Officials at the Treasury Department decided to launch a tiny $21 million pilot version of the program last month, just in case SBA lending falls back into turmoil. If that happens, the Treasury could easily ramp up the initiative now that it is operational, officials said.

While the financing markets for SBA loans improved, virtually all other kinds of small-business lending remained troubled.

To address this broader problem, the administration in January proposed taking $30 billion from the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program and offering that money to banks that lend to small businesses.

The aid would be given to these institutions at favorable annual interest rates, as low as 1 percent. The banks must show how they are using the funds to help small companies.

Administration officials also asked Congress to drop conditions attached to bailout funds, such as limits on executive pay, in order to encourage banks to take the money. They noted that hundreds of smaller banks last year did not take federal aid because of the stigma and the conditions attached to the funds.

Read more at: Washington Post

Click for Action!

Yesterday, President Obama signed the Senate’s version of the health care bill into law. The next step is for the Senate to pass the Reconciliation Package which passed out of the House earlier this week.
 
The Reconciliation Act of 2010 contains increased penalties for non-compliance and requires employers to include part-time workers when determining whether their company qualifies as a small business. The Senate is currently debating the bill and will begin considering amendments shortly before voting on the bill. As you may recall, the bill only needs 50 votes (with Vice-President Biden as the tie-breaker) for passage.
 
Please contact your U.S. Senators TODAY to voice your opposition to H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010. Click here to send a personalized email to your senators or call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to the legislative assistant handling health care in your state’s senate offices.  Phone calls, e-mails and faxes all work!

If you prefer to call your Senators, please use the following talking points provided by the National Restaurant Association on H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010: 

•  I am calling to ask Senator _____ to vote NO on the Health Care Reconciliation bill! (H.R. 4872)
• The legislation weakens the small business exemption, imposes severe administrative burdens, & includes extremely onerous penalties on small business owners like me. 
• The Senate-passed bill (H.R. 3590) included important protections for small businesses that rely on long-standing definitions of small business employment. 
• The changes made by the Reconciliation bill will include part-time workers in the employer mandate and increases penalties for uncovered workers.  That makes it unworkable for franchisees like me. 
• I am already operating on thin profit margins and trying to do what’s right for our employees.  But by imposing these onerous penalties and requiring small businesses to do this, you will add huge new costs and administrative obligations that I just can not take on, especially in these difficult times.
• Part-time employees are and have always been a large and essential component of our industry labor force. Many of our employees work for multiple employers to build a flexible work schedule, or receive coverage under another’s health plan. 
• I fear this new cost & burden will prevent us from maintaining and creating the jobs our economy needs to recover and the jobs that my business can provide. 
• I ask Senator ____ to Vote No on Health Care Reform Reconciliation!

Time is running out! Please do all that you can to protect your business from this harmful legislation!

In addition to requiring many restaurant operators to contribute to health care coverage for their employees, the newly passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also makes menu labeling the law of the land.

The bill, HR 3590, which is expected to expand health insurance coverage to most Americans by 2014, was passed Sunday night in the U.S. House of Representatives by a narrow margin of 219 to 212. Obama has said he will sign it into law Tuesday.

“The National Restaurant Association opposed the bill that passed the House because it includes provisions that will impose tremendous burdens on America’s restaurants and hurt our industry’s ability to create and sustain jobs,” said Scott DeFife, the NRA’s executive vice president of policy and government affairs.

The International Franchise Association also voiced opposition to the measure.

“We support health care reform, but this bill does not reduce the long-term costs of health care and puts more regulatory burden on small businesses,” said David French, the IFA’s vice president of government relations. “The House-passed bill imposes a costly employer mandate, offers inadequate and unworkable tax credits to subsidize the mandated coverage and hides the true cost with an array of new taxes on small-business owners.”

Certain key details contained within the measure are subject to change if the Senate passes the House-passed budget reconciliation bill, which includes several final revisions to the law. And while Senate Democrats appear confident that they have the votes to shepherd the reconciliation measure through the chamber, observers in the foodservice industry acknowledge that Republican opponents could delay the process.

“It’s a very complex process, and there’s no guarantee it will pass,” said Scott Vinson, vice president of the National Council of Chain Restaurants in Washington.

The NRA said it would continue to press its case before the Senate with respect to provisions affecting the restaurant industry. The IFA also said it would continue to press for a rejection of the reconciliation bill.

“The reconciliation bill further increases taxes on small businesses and includes additional burdensome regulatory hurdles and costs,” the IFA’s French said. “We urge the Senate to reject the reconciliation bill.”

The measure Obama plans to sign would impact businesses with 50 or more full-time employees. The law states that employers would receive a 35-percent tax credit if they helped to insure their employees. However, they would have to pay a fee of $750 per full-time employee if they chose not to insure them.

 Read more at: Nati0n’s Restaurant News

Obama signs the HIRE Act. AP/Charles Dharapak

The President recently signed into law the “Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act of 2010” (the HIRE Act, P. L. 111-47, 03/18/2010). The centerpiece of this Act is a payroll tax holiday and up-to-$1,000 tax credit for businesses that hire unemployed workers. In addition to these new hiring incentives, the HIRE Act also includes a one-year extension of the enhanced small business expensing option under Code Sec. 179 . Both of these provisions are extremely important to many businesses.

Payroll tax holiday and up-to-$1,000 credit for employers who hire unemployed workers. To help stimulate the hiring of workers by the private sector, the new law exempts any private-sector employer that hires a worker who had been unemployed for at least 60 days from having to pay the employer’s 6.2% share of the Social Security payroll tax on that employee for the remainder of 2010. A company could save a maximum of $6,621 if it hired an unemployed worker and paid that worker at least $106,800—the maximum amount of wages subject to Social Security taxes—by the end of the year. As an additional incentive, for any qualifying worker hired under this initiative that the employer keeps on payroll for a continuous 52 weeks, the employer is eligible for an additional non-refundable tax credit of up to $1,000 after the 52-week threshold is reached, to be taken on their 2011 tax return. In order to be eligible, the employee’s pay in the second 26-week period must be at least 80% of the pay in the first 26-week period.

Workers hired after the date of introduction of the legislation (Feb. 3, 2010) are eligible for the payroll tax forgiveness and the retention bonus, but only wages paid after March 18 receive the exemption for payroll taxes. Some additional features of the new hiring incentive include:

• The tax benefit of the new incentive is immediate. It puts money into a business’ cash flow immediately, since the tax is simply not collected in the first place.
• The tax benefit generally applies only to private-sector employment, including nonprofit organizations—public sector jobs are generally not eligible for either benefit. However, employment by a public higher education institution qualifies.
• There is no minimum weekly number of hours that the new employee must work for the employer to be eligible, and there is no limit on the dollar amount of payroll taxes per employer that may be forgiven.
• For workers that would otherwise be eligible for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (i.e., another type of employment tax credit), the employer must select one benefit or the other for 2010. There is no double dipping.
• An employer can’t claim the new tax breaks for hiring family members.
• A worker who replaces another employee who performed the same job for the employer isn’t eligible for the benefit, unless the prior employee left the job voluntarily or for cause.
• For the hiring to qualify, the new hire must sign an affidavit, under penalties of perjury, stating that he or she hasn’t been employed for more than 40 hours during the 60-day period ending on the date the employment begins.
• The incentive isn’t biased towards either low-wage or high-wage workers. Under the measure, a business saves 6.2% on both a $40,000 worker and a $90,000 worker.
• The payroll tax holiday doesn’t apply with respect to wages paid during the first calendar quarter of 2010, but the amount by which the Social Security payroll tax would have been reduced under the payroll tax holiday provision during the fist calendar quarter is applied against the tax imposed on the employer for the second calendar quarter of 2010.
• The Act creates a similar new set of rules allowing a payroll tax holiday for railroad retirement tax purposes.
• The credit for retaining qualifying new hires is the lesser of $1,000 or 6.2% of the wages paid by the taxpayer to the retained worker during the 52-consecutive-week period. Thus, the credit for a retained worker will be $1,000 if, disregarding rounding, the retained worker’s wages during the 52-consecutive-week period exceed $16,129.03. However, the credit isn’t available for pay not treated as wages under the Code (e.g., remuneration paid to domestic workers).

Extension of enhanced small business expensing. The new law gives a one-year lease on life to enhanced expensing rules, which allow qualifying businesses the option to currently deduct the cost of business machinery and equipment, instead of recovering it via depreciation over a number of years. For tax years beginning in 2010, the maximum amount that a business may expense is $250,000, and the expensing election begins to phase out when a business buys more than $800,000 of expensing-eligible assets. These dollar limits are the same as those that were in effect for 2008 and 2009. Had the HIRE Recovery Act not been passed and signed into law, these dollar limits would have dropped this year to $134,000 and $530,000 respectively.

Submitted by Jim Ventriglia of James P. Ventriglia, CPA, Inc. or Cranston, RI.  James P Ventriglia, MST, CPA, is DDIFO’s CPA and has been servicing the accounting needs of  Dunkin’ Donuts franchisees for decades. For more information contact him at  jimv@jpvcpa.com or at 401-942-0008.

Click for Action!

There are only hours left and considering the recent developments explained below, it is imperative that you make your voice heard! Go to CFA VOTES! to oppose both the Senate-passed version of health care refom and the reconciliation bill, which was introduced yesterday.
 
Yesterday morning, the Congressional Budget Office released its score of the reconciliation bill (H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010). The cost is $940 billion over 10 years, more than both the House and Senate bills.  It reduces the deficit by $130 billion in the first 10 years and by $1.2 trillion in the second decade.
 
Later yesterday afternoon, Congress released the language of the reconciliation bill. As you may remember, this bill is intended to address the concerns of more liberal members of the House of Representatives who do not support the Senate-passed version of the bill. Procedurally, the House is planning on passing the Senate-passed version and Congress will then consider the reconciliation bill which requires only a simple majority to pass.
 
Regarding employer mandates, the reconciliation bill contains the following language and amendments to the Senate-passed version of health care reform:

• Increases penalty from $750 per full-time employee (FTE) to $2,000 per FTE for large employers (>50 employees) that do not offer coverage and have at least one FTE that receives a premium tax credit or cost-sharing subsidy

• Large employers that offer coverage and have at least one FTE that receives a premium tax credit will pay penalties of $3,000 per employee receiving a premium credit.

• New provision disregards the first 30 workers employed by the employer in calculating the amount of the penalty.

• Repeals assessments on employers who require employees to wait more than 30 days to enroll in the employer’s health insurance coverage.

• Allows employers to count part-time workers’ time as “full-time equivalents,” based upon a 30-hour work week per FTE, for the purpose of calculating the penalties.

The language of the bill is still being analyzed and interpreted, but the impact on businesses across the country will be devastating. If you haven’t yet done so, contact your Members of Congress and tell them to oppose health care reform – both the Senate-passed version and the recently publicized reconciliation bill. 

Tell your elected officials where you stand! Do it now!

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that while the president and his congressional allies search for a way to pass their proposed health-care plan, most voters remain opposed to it. Forty-two percent now favor the plan, while 53 percent are against it — findings that have remained relatively constant since just after Thanksgiving. The new figures include just 20 percent who strongly favor the plan and 41 percent who are strongly opposed.

The IFA continues to urge Congress to put aside the divisive debate over a comprehensive approach and focus instead on policies that make coverage more affordable and accessible to all Americans, particularly franchised small businesses.

Even in ideal economic times, imposing costly regulations and taxes on business is a bad idea. Congress should pursue ways to streamline and modernize health-insurance regulation rather than adding new costs to job creation and adding to the federal deficit.

The Rasmussen Reports survey finds that 57 percent of voters say the health-care reform plan now working its way through Congress will hurt the U.S. economy. Just 25 percent think the plan will help the economy. But only 7 percent say it will have no impact. (Twelve percent aren’t sure.)

Two out of three voters (66 percent) also believe the health-care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats is likely to increase the federal deficit — up six percentage points from late November. Ten percent say the plan is more likely to reduce the deficit, and 14 percent say it will have no impact on the deficit.

There are several provisions in the Senate bill that impact small businesses, including an increase in the Medicare payroll tax by $54 billion over 10 years. This increase will likely hit approximately one-third of small businesses across the country, which employ 30 million Americans. Since the provision is not indexed for inflation, the number of small businesses (filers) that will pay the tax will increase 53 percent over the first seven years it is in effect.

Payroll taxes are an especially burdensome tax because they tax the cost of labor. Regardless of whether a small business makes a profit or not, it is forced to pay this tax.

Congress should move forward with sensible policies that provide regulatory certainty to small-business owners to assure sustainable economic recovery and job creation.

Legislation currently being considered by the House of Representatives still contains an unacceptable mandate on employers to provide health insurance. Instead of mandates, IFA is urging Congress to work on legislation that will adopt the following consensus reforms:

•Tax credits for small businesses and the self-employed to help them afford the full cost of health-insurance plans;

•National or regional exchanges where small businesses can pool together to purchase insurance plans and achieve the benefits of choice and competition;

•Consumer-driven options such as health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts; and

•Real medical liability reform to end the out-of-control costs associated with unnecessary defensive medicine.

Read more at: AllBusiness.com

Click for Action!

Action Alert: Please contact your Members of Congress and urge them to OPPOSE the current health care reform proposals. Specifically, tell your representatives to maintain the part-time worker exemption currently in the Senate-passed bill.

Additionally, if you live in or operate your businesses in the following member’s districts, please emphasize the impact of employer-mandated health care on your business and employees and urge them to continue to vote against the current health care proposals:

• Bobby Bright (AL-02)
• Christopher Murphy (CT-05)
• Suzanne Kosmos (FL-24)
• Allen Boyd (FL-02)
• Frank Kratovil (MD-01)
• Bart Stupak (MI-01)
• John Adler (NJ-03)
• Mike McMahon (NY-13)
• John Boccieri (OH-16)
• Bart Gordon (TN-06)
• John Tanner (TN-08)
• Rick Boucher (VA-09)
• Glenn Nye (VA-02)
• Brian Baird (WA-03)

TALKING POINTS: Visit CFA Votes! to send a customizable letter to your elected officials. If you choose to contact your members via telephone, below are talking points for your reference.