COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – The president of the South Carolina Small Business Association says there are a lot of misconceptions about health care reform and what it means for small businesses.
“You’re going to have tax credits available for health insurance from small businesses for the first time ever,” said association President Frank Knapp. “This is like Christmas to a lot of businesses in our state.”
Knapp says there are 103,000 small businesses in South Carolina. Under the new law passed, if you have less than 25 employees, Knapp says you could qualify for tax credits for insuring your employees. That’s even if you’ve been insuring them all along.
“The majority — over 95% — of our businesses in this state have 50 or fewer employees,” said Knapp. “They are going to be benefiting from this and have no obligation to offer health insurance and to have any additional cost. This is a good thing.”
[Click here for more facts on health care reform from the SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce]
Knapp has a lot of good information for what this plan means for you if you own a small business.
For example, Knapp says there are no mandates for small businesses to offer insurance and no tax increases on small business.
“If you have 50 or fewer employees there is no downside for you at all,” he said.
Knapp said “the public has been lied to for a long time” by politicians who say the health care reform law is bad for small business.
“This is a very good thing for small business in South Carolina,” Knapp repeated. “There will be some small fraction with more than 50 employees that may find themselves in 2014 in a position for shared responsibility for health insurance for their people. But even that will be minimal.”