This week is National Small Business Week – an annual opportunity since 1963 to recognize and celebrate the critical contributions of America’s small businesses. Unfortunately, with small business tax rates as high as 44.6%, our nation’s broken tax code now makes it harder for our Main Street job creators to succeed. Ways and Means Republicans are committed to changing this. Working with President Trump and our Senate colleagues, we are now pushing full steam ahead with efforts to drastically reduce tax rates on America’s small businesses.

Today, small businesses make up the vast majority of all U.S. businesses. Currently, they employ over 56 million Americans – roughly half of our nation’s entire private sector workforce. And, it’s more than just their economic impact that makes our nation’s small businesses so important – it’s also the ways in which they inspire others to dream big and put bold ideas into motion.

As Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) explained in an Investor’s Business Daily op-ed:

“In many ways, America’s small businesses embody the best of who we are as a nation and the promise of who we can be. They are the incubators of American innovation. They show us that, through grit and ingenuity, a simple idea can be transformed into a breakthrough product or service that improves countless lives.”

Despite the invaluable contributions of our Main Street job creators and workers, small businesses are often hit hardest by the burdens of America’s broken tax code. Today, they are taxed at individual rates as high as 44.6%. They now face incredible tax complexity but often cannot afford high-priced tax lawyers or accountants like big businesses. And, if the high rates and complexity aren’t punishing enough, the Death Tax may impose a tax bill so large that family-owned enterprises cannot survive from one generation to the next.

America’s economy cannot reach its full potential with a tax code that makes it so difficult for small businesses to succeed, create jobs, and grow wages.

Whether it’s a family-owned farm in Central Washington…

A locally-renowned restaurant in South Florida…

Or a machine parts manufacturing plant in Northern Indiana…

All of our nation’s small businesses and workers need a tax code that works with them – not against them – as they innovate, inspire, and grow. Washington must take less time and money from our Main Street job creators so they can invest more in their businesses, their workers, and their futures.

Working with President Trump and the Senate, Ways and Means Republicans are dedicated to making pro-growth tax reform a reality in 2017 so that all of America’s small businesses have a greater opportunity to succeed.