Washington, DC – Millions of small businesses in Idaho and other states would be spared the agony of onerous tax paperwork associated with health care reform under legislation co-sponsored today by Idaho Senators Jim Risch and Mike Crapo. The new health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act presently expands requirements and red tape for how businesses report services performed for them by independent contractors and other non-corporate entities. The bill introduced today, The Small Businesses Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act, would repeal that provision.

Under the health bill, every transaction exceeding $600 will require that new paperwork be filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Risch and Crapo, along with fellow sponsors of the bill, say basic business expenses, such as phone and internet service, shipping and supplies, will fall under the expanded paperwork requirements. In addition, the provisions serve as a disincentive for companies to use smaller vendors because it may encourage them to purchase more supplies from one large company.

“Over 80 percent of our nation’s jobs are supplied by small businesses. This legislation is an attempt to protect those jobs and remove the stifling hand of unnecessary government regulation,” said Risch.

“Our legislation simply repeals the section of the new health care law that requires expanding this onerous paperwork,” Crapo said. “This is not the time to further demand that small business fill out extensive forms for every small transaction. In addition, these requirements endanger small businesses that specialize in a specific product or service by creating incentives to move their contracts to larger vendors. This provision endangers small business, the main economic factor in all new job creation, and it must be repealed.”

The Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act was introduced by Senator Mike Johanns (R-Nebraska) and co-sponsored by Risch, Crapo and a number of other Senators.

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