A Legislative Agenda to Startup America

Today, Startup America celebrates its first birthday, and President Obama is sending Congress a set of proposals to help boost the startups and small businesses that create so many jobs in this country.

President Obama has already cut taxes for businesses 17 times. Now, he's asking lawmakers to create four new tax cuts. He's proposing a new 10 percent income tax credit on new payroll for small businesses; a permanent extension of a tax cut he signed in 2010 that eliminates taxes on capital gains in key investments for small businesses; a doubling of the amount that entrepreneurs can deduct from their taxes for start-up expenses, and a 100 percent extension of first-year depreciation of qualified property for one year.

To help businesses find more investors, the President is calling for a national framework that allows entrepreneurs to raise money through "crowdfunding." Currently, the most a small business can raise through a round of "Regulation A" mini-funding is $5 million -- but President Obama wants to boost that limit to $50 million, coupled with strong protections for investors. He's calling for changes in how securities laws and regulations are phased in for small companies in their first year after going public. And the President wants to increase the Small Business Investment Company program to to allow for up to $4 billion in annual support.

President Obama is also calling on Congress to relieve the backlog of immigrant visas. To do that, he wants lawmakers to eliminate the country-specific caps for certain immigrant visas to attract more high skilled foreign workers, particularly entrepreneurs.

To learn more about all these proposals, go here.