Make Your Voice Heard on Capitol Hill
Attendees Hear Wide Ranging Update on Legislation, Estate Taxes, China’s Growing Dominance, AI Issues, and Congressional Family Business Caucus
The latest meeting of the Women’s Business Owners Group saw Rep. Young Kim (R-CA) address attendees on a wide range of topics, including last year’s reconciliation tax bill, estate taxes, China’s growing dominance, artificial intelligence, and an update on the growing Congressional Family Business Caucus.
The Women’s Business Owners Group (The Group) meeting was held at the headquarters of Global, a 1st Flagship Company, here and was hosted by the company’s President, Sherri Bovino.
Bovino kicked-off the meeting by introducing Rep. Kim and then asked each of the 18 attendees for a brief review of their businesses and key legislative issues of concern.
The Group was founded by Family Enterprise USA (FEUSA) and its President, Pat Soldano. The Group is a coalition dedicated to highlighting and addressing the unique challenges faced by women-owned businesses.
Women-owned businesses employ over 12.2 million employees nationwide and represent nearly 40 percent of all U.S. businesses, or over 14 million businesses in total, accounting for $2.7 trillion in revenue, according to Wells Fargo research.
Rep Young’s Inside View
Rep. Kim provided The Group with an inside view of key pending and current legislation, including the benefits of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act and its positive impacts on women-owned businesses. After Kim spoke, The Group began a roundtable discussion on tax and economic issues.
The Group also heard an update from FEUSA President Pat Soldano on the recent Congressional Family Business Caucus meeting held in Washington, D.C., on June 9.
The Caucus theme was “Fuel for Growth: Capital Solutions for Family-Owned Businesses.” The bipartisan Caucus now has 47 House Members signed on, including Rep. Kim. The Caucus co-chairs are Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA).
Among the many topics Rep. Kim touched upon was the Estate Tax and its long-term, generational effect on family businesses.
“The Estate Tax Rate Reduction Act is especially one of the things you brought to my attention at these meetings,” said Kim. “We have generations of business owners hit with this, under the current law the highest tax rate is now forty percent,” she said. “I’ll be talking to the bill’s sponsor, Representative Jodey Arrington, about it because I know this will reduce the rate on estates, the gifts, and generation skipping transfers to twenty percent. Right now, forty percent is too high.”
Rep. Kim also discussed the growing momentum for a wealth tax.
“We’re also talking a lot about wealth taxes these days,” Kim said. “It’s also something important to follow. Again, we have generations of family-owned businesses and then your grandparent’s generation paid taxes, your parents’ generation already paid so much in estate taxes, I mean there’s all kinds of taxes and we’re taxed to death. We don’t need more taxes. It’s something I’m going to be paying attention to.”
The Group’s mission is to “amplify the voices of women entrepreneurs, foster collaboration, and advocate for policies that promote equity in business,” said the organization’s founder, Soldano.
The Group was created to further educate and inform Congress on the importance of women-owned businesses and to work with the bipartisan Congressional Family Business Caucus.
“It’s important to have women business owners understand the importance of advocating on Capitol Hill and to educate lawmakers on the critical issues affecting them. The Group helps create real bonds between women-owned businesses and our lawmakers,” said Soldano. “The Group’s mission is to amplify the voices of women entrepreneurs, foster collaboration, and advocate for policies that promote equity in business. We would love
it if members of Congress, like Representative Kim, would listen to us, hear what our challenges are, work with us, get support from us.”
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The need for fact-based reporting of issues important to family owned businesses and protecting a lifetime of savings has never been greater. Now more than ever, successful families and family owned businesses are under fire. That's why Family Enterprise USA is passionately working to increase the awareness of issues important to family owned businesses built on hard work, while continuing to strengthen our presence on Capitol Hill. The issues we fight for or against with Congress in Washington DC include high income tax rates, possible elimination of valuation discounts, increase in capital gains tax, enactment of a wealth tax, and the continued burden of the gift tax, estate tax and generation skipping tax.
Family Enterprise USA promotes generationally owned family business creation, growth, viability, and sustainability by advocating for family businesses and their lifetime of savings with Congress in Washington DC. Since 2007, Family Enterprise USA has represented and celebrated all sizes, professions and industries of family-owned enterprises and multi-generational employers. It is a bi-partisan 501.c3 organization. Family foundations can donate.