This week, on ASBN Small Business News, anchor Shyann Malone brings you up to speed on the latest tools and resources now available for small to medium-sized businesses.
Top Stories
Small business owners felt mostly optimistic during the holiday season, even as concerns over high interest rates held back economic confidence in the last months of 2023. According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), 88% of small business owners surveyed during the fourth quarter of 2023 cited interest rates as their primary obstacle to financing their operations. The number represents a dramatic increase from the start of Q3 when only 58% of entrepreneurs felt the same way. However, the extent to which businesses were impacted by interest rate increases varied between the NFIB’s research participants. Read Here
Small businesses are now required to submit additional paperwork to the Treasury Department following the enactment of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) on January 1. The CTA requires companies to identify their owners, controlling entities, or other benefactors by submitting a Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) report. According to the Treasury Department, a “beneficial owner” is an individual or entity that meets one of the following criteria: they own at least 25% of the business, they command a position of authority over the business, or they exert a high level of control over the business’s equity. Read Here
The Small Business Administration (SBA) will begin collection activities on delinquent pandemic-era loans under $100,000 after facing pressure from Republican lawmakers for multiple years. The SBA was previously only collecting on defaulted Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) loans, both implemented to support business owners and their employees during the COVID pandemic, equal to or more than $100,000. However, Republican congressional members within the House and Senate small business committees have been calling for more aggressive and widespread collections activity for multiple years in an effort to recover taxpayer expenses and combat fraud. Read Here
On December 19, President Joe Biden vetoed a resolution that would have repealed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) small-business lending rule. The CFPB’s rule requires financial institutions to gather and report credit application data for small businesses to the bureau. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved the resolution to repeal the rule earlier this month after the U.S. Senate had done so in October. In a statement by the White House, Biden said that repealing the rule would “harm all those that stand to benefit from expanded transparency and accountability.” Read Here
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