Scott speaks at Chamber’s ‘Coffee with the Congressman’

Simplicity and predictability. Those are the two things Congressman Austin Scott said given his way he would provide to local business owners.

Scott, who represents the 8th Congressional District, was the featured guest of the Robins Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Coffee with the Congressman held Wednesday at the Chamber.

He talked in length about the corporate income tax and also talked about the aforementioned – simplicity and predictability.

“I’m a business owner at heart,” he started. “My wife and I operate a small business and I’ll tell you: We still don’t know until we get down at the end of the year if we owe the IRS or if they owe us.

“Our tax return will be 80 pages long. Sometimes there’s more pages than profit. And I’ll tell you as that small business owner … someone that has a mindset of getting our economy back on track in this country … there are two things we can do for you as business owner to simply your life. (One) let’s get rid of some of these hoops we’re making people jump through that do absolutely no good. They may have been a good idea when they were put into motion 20, 30 or 40 years ago but today they are of little value. And in many cases they slow down the process of getting business back to work.”

The other thing, Scott said, was the predictability. He said if you talk to a small business owner and asked them what they need, there response is always the same: “I need to know what the rules are going to be tomorrow. I can’t go to the bank and borrow money for a business plan based on a set of rules when those rules may change before I get that plan in place.”

One of the goals, Scott said, was to get the process back closer to the “state”. He said he had never encountered this, but said he had friends that did, but whenever they would try to get in touch with a state regulator, they could never get anyone one the phone. Contrast that to the state, he said, where you could always get someone on the phone and typically could get the issue solved within a 30-minute block.

“If it’s a federal regulator,” he said. “From what my friends told me, there were attorneys involved. It cost thousands of dollars and took months (to resolve).

“If I had my way, we’re going to simplify your life. And we’re going to give you some predictability to what the rules and regulations are going to be going forward.”

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