From your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento
Welcome to the December 25-29 edition of the NFIB California Main Street Merry Minute from your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento.
This edition of the Main Street Minute is coming to you a little earlier to accommodate everyone’s time to fully enjoy Christmas Day. We have a few items of news to close out the year, but first we need to say something from the heart.
The Best Bosses
- Wishing a happy holiday and a joyous New Year to all the readers of the Main Street Minute.
- We doubt many employees of General Motors, Google, Amazon, Tesla, and any other big corporation are giving thanks this holiday season to their employers. The world of huge endeavors is cold, impersonal, and distant.
- Not so, the employees of NFIB. Our bosses, the small-business owners of the nation, are the best bosses to work for. When not valiantly keeping their doors open for business, so their employees can keep putting food on the table and a roof over the head of their families, they can be found serving their communities helping direct charities serving the least fortunate of society or contributing time and money to Little Leagues, bowling teams, and every other activity giving cities and towns their social cohesion and life its carbonation.
- Small business owners don’t have a lot of spare time, which is why NFIB is so very grateful when we can pull them away to testify before Congress and state legislatures on issues vital to the survival of all small businesses. No one speaks on small business issues with more authority than a small business owner. When NFIB escorts them into the offices of congressional representatives and state lawmakers, the looks on elected officials’ faces are universal in their respect for the people who run an enterprise on the Main Streets of their district.
- Small business owners are also fun to be around, having a life experience and sense of humor we are hard-pressed to imagine Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or the CEOs of the big automakers having.
- For all of this, the staff of NFIB thanks its bosses, YOU, the Small Business Owners.”
Retail Theft is Off and Running
- The new legislative committee charged with doing something about it that is.
- The Assembly Select Committee on Retail Theft held its first-ever meeting Tuesday (December 19) and much of it centered on data and on Proposition 47. Supporters of not laying a finger on Prop. 47 will not go quietly, as this story in The Sacramento Bee records.
- With 2024 an election year, The Bee noted, “California Democrats are taking on statewide retail theft, creating a dilemma for a party constantly facing ‘soft on crime’ criticisms: how to tackle an issue of public concern without undoing criminal justice reforms. … It’s clear Democrats face pressure to deal with retail theft, which Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, underscored by attending part of the meeting.”
- NFIB California is part of the Californians Against Retail and Residential Theft, which is fighting to put a dent in the epidemic. NFIB commended Rivas for at least acknowledging an issue his predecessor couldn’t bring himself to say and for establishing the committee. It looks forward to giving him praise if something substantive comes out of the hearings, but it will be a tough slog.
Compliance Tsunami Rising
- Whatever 2024 turns out to be, it’s most definitely starting out as a year of more paperwork for small business owners.
- If you have a spare half hour over the holidays, NFIB highly encourages its members to give a listen to this NFIB California Podcast featuring one of the state’s top labor and employment lawyers discussing four new laws taking effect in the Golden State in 2024—two of which are whoppers in compliance requirements, and one of them fertile ground for lawsuits from employees.
- Beginning July 1, almost every business in California must have a written workplace-violence-prevention program in place and keep a violent-incident log that may be read by employees. It also requires annual training of employees.
- About that new law, podcast guest Ben Ebbink says, “This is not something where you can print off a template from Cal/OSHA’s website and put your business in on top of it, and you’re done. This really requires you to do a customized, labored assessment of your workplace and the particular hazards that could exist in your workplace, and that’s going to differ from business to business.”
- The workplace segment begins at the 8:45-minute mark.
- And don’t forget your new FinCEN reporting requirement on beneficial ownership taking effect January 1. What would a new year be without a new regulation from Washington, D.C.?
- In an NFIB survey, 90% of NFIB members have never heard of the beneficial ownership reporting requirement regulation that is set to take effect in January 2024. This new federal law passed in 2020 is set to expand the role of the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to collect and store confidential personal information about small businesses that have fewer than 20 full-time employees. This is a substantial regulation that only affects small business owners.
- NFIB has produced this web story with the information needed to bring its members and all small business owners up to speed.
- “This is going to require 32.6 million small businesses to register their beneficial ownership information with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network by January 1, 2024,” said Government Relations Director Jeff Brabant. “Anyone who has a 25% or greater stake in the company or senior officer will have to register a copy of their driver’s license and business information. This is a daunting task and probably the biggest regulation that no one is talking about right now.”
- Speaking of Brabant, he was quoted in the December 20 edition of the Washington Times, saying, “NFIB is pushing for a full repeal of this legislation. We feel it’s unnecessary; however, administratively there is a chance that FinCEN delays it, and there’s also a chance that Congress delays it for one year. The statute allowed for up to two years for reporting for companies once this is passed on January 1; however, FinCEN chose one year. So FinCEN can choose to delay it another year and that’s something we hope they do.”
- Further information can be read in this joint letter to Congress that NFIB is a co-signer on. Also, on January 17, NFIB is hosting a webinar, Beneficial Ownership Reporting Is Here: What Small Business Owners Need to Know About the New Reporting Requirements. Click the link to sign up.
Calendar
- December 28, certified list of candidates in the March 5 Primary Election released.
- January 3, 2024, the California State Legislature reconvenes.
- January 10, deadline for Gov. Gavin Newsom to unveil his 2024-2025 budget plan.
- February 5, counties begin mailing ballots to voters.
- February 20, last day to register for the March Primary Election
- March 5, Primary Election Day
- More deadlines here.
National
Highlights from NFIB Media team member Abigail Reno’s weekly report
- The House of Representatives will return to session on Jan. 9, 2024. The Senate is scheduled to be back in session on Jan. 8, 2024, but may return sooner.
- On Dec. 11, NFIB Key Voted in support of H.R. 5378, the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act. The legislation promotes healthcare price transparency, fights anticompetitive PBM (Pharmacy Benefit Manager) practices, and provides employers with more choice and control over their healthcare costs.
- NFIB sent a letter in support of H.J.Res 98, which would repeal the NLRB’s final joint-employer rule, on Dec. 11.
Next Main Street Minute January 1, 2024.
