Small Business Owners' Guide to the Election

By: Kent Hoover, Bizjournals

Posted: October 17, 2008

page 3 of 13

Sources: McCain, Obama campaigns

Obama's proposed tax hike, therefore, would affect relatively few small businesses.

These small business, however, are "an important slice of the small business community," said Todd McCracken, president of the National Small Business Association. They tend to be higher-growth small businesses that create more jobs than lower-income companies, he said. "You don't want to give those people reasons to do unproductive things," such as sheltering their income.

A business owner who makes about $300,000 a year probably puts $100,000 of that back into the business, said Dewey Martin, a certified public accountant in Hampden, Maine, who represents about 125 business clients and also chairs the accounting department at Husson College.

"If you take money out of their pockets, they're not going to be creating jobs," Martin said.