On April 5, the Senate passed H.R. 4, the House-passed Small Business Paperwork Mandate Repeal Act of 2011 by a vote of 87-12. The legislation was signed into law by President Obama on April 14. Again, tucked away in the massive new health care law was a change to IRS rules that would require businesses to report all transactions that involve property or services which aggregate more than $600 in a year per vendor, even when making purchases from a corporation. This would have triggered the requirement to file a Form 1099 with the IRS and furnish taxpayer identification numbers (TINs) for the businesses and persons involved.
Members of the International Franchise Association supported the repeal of this onerous provision through extensive lobbying directly with the White House, bipartisan members of Congress and grassroots advocacy due to the excessive cost burden and uncertainty the provision placed on the over 825,000 franchise establishments representing nearly 18 million workers in the United States. A special thanks to everyone in the franchise community, particularly IFA’s Franchise Congress key advocates, for tireless grassroots efforts continuously communicating with lawmakers how onerous this requirement would be to small business owners.
This repeal marks a tremendous victory for both franchise advocacy and for small businesses across the country. “The franchise business community’s message was heard loud and clear by Congress and the Administration that the costs of the health care law should not be placed on the backs of the true job creators in the economy,” said IFA President & CEO Steve Caldeira.  “We thank the President and lawmakers for repealing this onerous provision on franchise small businesses and hope our policymakers will continue to push for pro-growth policies that enable our members to grow their businesses and create local jobs.”