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This bill aims to encourage people to start businesses by giving them tax breaks. It amends an existing piece of the Internal Revenue Service Code that offers breaks to businesses started in 2010. This bill would extend those tax breaks to businesses started in 2015 and 2016. While the businesses that started in those years get to keep those breaks going forward, businesses that started between 2010 and 2015 are out of luck.

So, about those 2010 breaks. Normally, in the year that a taxpayer starts a business, they can deduct start up expenses from their taxes: $5,000, minus any cost of starting the business over $50,000. The 2010 breaks loosen those cuts, providing a $10,000 deduction for any expenses over $60,000.

A bit of hair-splitting: in his press release about this bill, sponsoring Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) makes reference to Silicon Valley, suggesting that this bill is aimed at tech start-ups. But nowhere in the bill does it specify the kind of business that can benefit.

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Should Congress Give New Business Start-ups Tax Breaks?