Bush growth plan aids small businesses.

• Position: Taxation - Growth and Job Plan

Pres. Bush's Growth and Job Plan includes promising tax incentives that will dramatically benefit small business owners, says certified public accountant Diane Kennedy, author of Loopholes of the Rich and co-host of the nationally broadcast radio show "Wealth Talk America." She maintains the plan will give small businesses the same tax benefits only large corporations previously had.

Among the biggest benefits are those from C Corporation dividends being paid tax-free to shareholders. This change means that small businesses--including home-based ones--can operate like the Fortune 500s do by using C corporate status. In the past, small business owners stayed away from C Corporations to avoid double taxation of dividends. Under current law, a C Corporation cannot take a deduction for the dividends paid. In addition, the individual shareholder who receives the dividends must pay on the dividend income, thus, double taxation--first by the corporation, then income to an individual taxpayer.

"Small business owners have historically helped pull our country out of recession and poor economic times," Kennedy points out. "The Bush plan would now reward these small business owners with the potential benefit of operating in different business structures. This opens the door to an incentive that will enable entrepreneurs to keep more of their money, and enable them to invest it into further growth of their businesses. A potential boom to the economy."

C Corporations can provide many tax-free benefits to their owners that other corporate classifications (such as S Corporations) and business structures do not. An S Corporation and a C Corporation are, for purposes of state law, identical. The difference between the two is how they are taxed. All corporations begin as...