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Pennsylvania State Senate
05/20/2024 02:53 AM
Pennsylvania State Senate
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=S&SPick=20230&cosponId=40426
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Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: April 5, 2023 03:01 PM
From: Senator Vincent J. Hughes and Sen. Jimmy Dillon, Sen. Nick Miller
To: All Senate members
Subject: Small Business Fee Exemption
 
In the near future, we plan on reintroducing Senate Bill 778 from the 2021-2022 session. This legislation known as the “Small Business Fee Exemption Act” would reduce or eliminate business startup fees for small businesses.

Small businesses are the economic backbones of our communities and account for nearly 50% of the Commonwealth’s private sector workforce.  According to the 2022 Small Business Profile from the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, between March 2020 and March 2021, Pennsylvania had a net increase of nearly 4,000 small businesses.  That same profile showed that women make up 48% of the workers in a small business and that between 1995 and 2019 Pennsylvania small business employment grew by 6.1%,
 
Our proposal expands on action previously taken by the General Assembly in Act 35 of 2016. Act 35 provided a 100% exemption for veteran-owned and reservist-owned small businesses from certain state and local business startup fees.
 
Our bill would expand the exemption to include women-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, minority-owned, and disadvantaged businesses. “Microenterprises,” defined as a business with five employees or less would also qualify for a 100% exemption. In addition, all other small businesses would receive a partial exemption equal to 50% of the fee. The Department of State will be responsible for reporting to the Senate and House of Representatives the number of small businesses which have benefited from the elimination or reduction of business fees.

Eliminating or reducing startup fees is a simple tool we can use to spur the creation of more small businesses in the Commonwealth and create a new class of entrepreneurs and would be an exciting step to take as we prepare to celebrate “National Small Business Week.”

Please join us in sponsoring this legislation.

If you have any questions please contact our offices.
 


Introduced as SB663