Here are a few facts about those insignificant small business owners from the US Department of Commerce to chew on...
How important are small businesses to the U.S. economy?
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Small firms:[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]• Employ half of all private sector employees.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]• Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]• Generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]• Create more than half of the nonfarm private GDP.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]• Hire 43 percent of high tech workers (scientists, engineers, computer programmers, and others).[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]• Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]• Made up 97.5 percent of all identified exporters and produced 31 percent of export value in FY 2008.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]• Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.[/FONT]
[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau and Intl. Trade Admin.; Advocacy-funded research by Kathryn Kobe, 2007 ([/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]www.sba.gov/advo/[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]research/rs299tot.pdf[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]) and CHI Research, 2003 ([/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]www.sba.gov/advo/research/[/FONT][/FONT]
How much does the typical small business owner earn? I really don't know, but a lot is stated about the effect of income tax on small businesses owners since they earn taxable income over $250k.
Is this because a small business owner pays himself a salary which, after deductions ends up being over $250k/year? Does not the small business exist as an entity in its own right and get taxed on its net profits through Corporate taxes? Residual profits being saved / invested for future growth or to weather bad business years etc.
The small business owner could also shelter some of his income with company cars, group health insurance and many other means I'm not aware of.