12 Percent of MO Small Businesses Qualify for Health Insurance Tax Credit
By: Missouri News Horizon
Updated: June 28, 2012
(Jefferson City, MO) -- Only 12 percent of small businesses in Missouri qualify to get a tax credit to pay for health insurance for their employees.
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The rest, according to Brad Jones of the Missouri chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, will have to make due on their own, and that's going to be tough.
"It's not like they're the big, old, mean small business people out there just don't want to cover their employees. That's not the case at all. In many cases, they have to have some kind of a minimum benefit in order to attract good people to come to work for them."
Jones says for a lot of small businesses, they may face the choice of not paying some of their employees health insurance premiums or closing up shop.
"I think we're going to see health care rates go up, and when you're talking about small business, really, in covering their employees, it's a cost that we have always said at NFIB is one of the most important cost drivers."
Small businesses can get tax credits to provide health insurance to their employees, but the bigger the company, the less the tax credit. Jones says once a business hits about ten employees, the credit doesn't offset the cost of the insurance enough to be helpful.
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