Making It Legal:

It’s never easy being a small business.  It’s hard enough to qualify for venture capital funding . . . and yet receiving it could disqualify you from other small business incentives through the Small Business Administration and other government programs.  It’s a “damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t” conundrum.

According to a recent report in the New York Times, Jason Altmire, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-PA) proposed the Small Business Expansion Act of 2007  to enable small businesses to qualify for federal research grants without being penalized for accepting venture capital money.  VC funds are crucial for companies in the biotechnology arena, for example, that typically take years to generate revenues, which means they often have difficulty getting bank loans.   Venture capital can mean the difference between survival and failure.  

The White House and the Small Business Administration are critical of the bill.  They cite the concern that the legislation will give VC firms “them the potential to masquerade as small firms and tap into billions of dollars in federal research grants and contracts” — which are supposed to be set aside for “true” small businesses.

The legislation passed the House of Representatives at the end of September.  It has been sent to the Senate, where it was referred to the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship — which (go figure) has both a Democrat site and a Republican site (don’t get me started on why the American taxpayer needs to pay for two sites to the same committee).

Billions of dollars in small federal contracts could be opened to small businesses if the Small Business Administration (SBA) prevails in a dispute with the General Services Administration (GSA).  According to a report on Associated Content, the SBA has ruled that, under the Small Business Act, the GSA needs to set aside contracts valued between $3,000 and $100,000 for small businesses.  A copy of the decision can be found at http://www.fitnet.net/FPA/Press/SBA%20Opinion.pdf.  Not surprisingly, the GSA disagrees.    According to a report from the Washington Bureau of Bizjournal.com, the GSA contends that if all orders under $100,000 have to be set aside for small businesses, medium-sized businesses and large businesses effectively would be eliminated from the program. “Not only would this reduce competition and increase costs to agencies, it would also negatively impact those small businesses who are part of large business subcontracting plans or who participate in teaming arrangements with large and medium-size businesses,” GSA wrote in response to SBA’s opinion. The founder of the Fairness in Procurement Alliance, small business advocate Raul Espinoza, disagrees.  He thinks all exemptions from small set-aside requirements should be eliminated from federal contracting.  “The exemptions are directly responsible for having excluded, illegally, $640 billion in federal contracts over the last decade from small and minority businesses,” he said. 

Do you have (or want) to do business with the federal government?  Are you thinking of merging your company with another?  If so, check out the new U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) rules on small business size that went into effect on June 30th. 

As reported in Law.com, to ensure that a certain percentage of federal contracts go to “smallâ€? businesses, the federal government has (not surprisingly) a veritable thicket of rules and regulations on what constitutes “small.â€?  Unfortunately, the answer depends on the federal program — it’s not the same or straightforward answer every time. 

And now the rules have changed, so that companies that have long-term prime federal contracts (not subcontracts) in place will need to recertify their “smallness� within 4 months of the end of the fith year of their contract.  Obviouly, a merger with another company could move your business from small to “too large to qualify for this contract.� 

Subcontractors beware:  the rule doesn’t yet apply to you, but it could, soon.  The SBA has indicated it may issue a separate rule imposing recertification requirements for subcontractors. Visit the Federal Register’s website for the recertification regulation. 

If you’re at all interested in doing business with government entites, don’t go it alone.  It’s a potentially lucrative, but paperwork-heavy area.  Seek assistance from certification providers like the National Women’s Business Owner Council, and organizations like the SBA so that you’re sure you do it right!

There are so many reasons not to smoke:  it’s bad for your lung health, bad for your brain activity, socially undesirable, a danger to others . . . and, it’s largely illegal in the workplace. In many states and counties around the country, smoking is banned in the workplace.  And the fines are not insignificant for small businesses:  sometimes as high as $1000 per day, plus ongoing fines for each day that the violation coninues.   In addition, while there used to be a “you-can-do-it-if-your-office-door-is-closed” loophole in some laws, that loophole is slowly closing . . . around smoker’s necks.  As people become more aware of the effects of second-hand smoke, and as they realize that smoke — like air itself — is not hermetically sealed behind a closed door, the closed door rationale no longer holds weight. So, the next time you’re tempted to light up in your workplace, think of your employees, and do the math:One pack of Marlboro Gold (f/k/a Marlboro Lights) — $7.00