Tax credits may help some small businesses pay for insurance

Health insurance costs for small businesses can be a major expense but tax credits may help some business owners.

Des Moines Register: Small Business Tax Credit Advances
Iowa-based small businesses could get a tax credit to help defray the cost of providing health care insurance under a bill the Iowa Senate approved Monday. "Even the smallest businesses, the ones that don't have big profits or a large tax liability, can get a state refund check by providing health care to their employees," said Sen. Tom Rielly, D-Oskaloosa. (Jacobs, 3/22).

The Hill: Administration Hopes Tax Time Will Boost Support For Health Care Reform
The Obama administration and its allies launched a concerted effort Monday to get the word out about the healthcare reform law's small business tax credits as employers prepare to file their taxes (Pecquet, 3/21).

WBUR's CommonHealth Blog: Small Business Health Insurance Costs: Are You 'Getting Creamed' Again?
I have yet to nail them down, but there are second-hand reports floating around of small businesses receiving notice that their health insurance premiums will rise 20, 30, even 40% this year. ... How can this be, when word came out just last month that base rates for health insurance in Massachusetts would rise only in the single digits this year? ... Joseph Murphy, commissioner of the state Division of Insurance, explained: Health insurers file "base rates" with the state, he said, "and on top of that, the carriers can apply — per the insurance statutes — adjustments for the type of industry, where the business is located, the size of the group and the age of the group. Those are allowable, and those can adjust those base rates considerably — or a little — upward" (Goldberg, 3/21).