Small Business | featured news

...Our biggest disappointment was our misunderstanding of how Facebook Pages work. Instead of building a database of users that you can contact at will, you are essentially paying Facebook to build a list of people that you can then advertise to.

If money is the only thing stopping you from doing something good in the world, stop waiting and start doing some good! Nothing better symbolizes entrepreneurship than fundraising.  Social entrepreneurs are no different.

Senators rejected dueling Democratic and Republican small-business tax cut plans on Thursday, the latest futile effort to break the election-year gridlock that’s consumed Capitol Hill on issues dealing with jobs and the economy... “There is no reason for [Republicans] to have killed this bill other than they are trying to hurt President Obama, small businesses and the middle class,” Reid, who introduced the bill, said at a news conference.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday ordered a series of modest steps aimed at helping small businesses, his latest election-year effort to counter Republican attacks on his economic record and show voters he is trying to tackle high unemployment.

Some families where either the mom or dad decided to stay at home with their kids during the early years have decided against going back to the corporate craziness and instead are choosing entrepreneurship.

Immigrants own 33% of California's small businesses, the highest share in the U.S., and make up 27% of the state's population. When Gloria Suen opened a retail shop in Chinatown, she and her sister knew so little English they could barely decipher the rules and regulations that govern small businesses.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But a health insurance tax credit for small businesses, part of President Barack Obama's health care law that gets strong support in public opinion polls, has turned out to be a disappointment.

An Obama spokesperson pointed out 98 percent of taxpayers earn less than $250,000, and letting the tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans would impact less than 3 percent of all small businesses. Obama has cut taxes for small businesses 18 times, including eliminating capital gains taxes on the sale of some small-business stock, the re-election campaign said.

Less of the labor force is working in small businesses than in the early 1990s. After a brief resurgence from 2001 to 2004, the share of private sector employment in companies with between 1 and 249 employees has fallen.

The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a tax break for small businesses, giving voters a stark alternative to President Barack Obama's politically popular "Buffett Rule" surtax on the wealthy.