small business

This paper reports upon a research project which was designed to explore the relationship between the record keeping practices of small businesses and their potential exposure to tax and related business compliance problems. Overall, the research showed that there was some dissonance between perceptions and reality. All of the key stakeholders – SME owners/managers, practitioners and ATO auditors – perceived (to varying degrees) direct relationships between poor SME record keeping practices and adverse tax compliance outcomes.

The report finds that DOE faces two key management challenges to improving its small business program. Addressing these challenges will bring DOE’s small business program more in line with the practices associated with high-performing organizations and with principles contained in the Government Performance and Results Act.

The report finds that since the late 1990s, SBA has experienced mixed success in addressing other management challenges that affect its ability to manage the 7(a) loan program. With respect to using information technology to monitor loans made by 7(a) lenders, between 1997 and 2002, SBA was unsuccessful in developing its own system to establish a risk management database as required by law. However, SBA awarded a contract in April 2003 to obtain loan monitoring services.

According to data from the 2002 economic census, the number of black-owned firms grew by 45 percent between 1997 and 2002. Overall, there are 1.2 million black-owned businesses in the U.S., accounting for roughly $88.8 billion in revenues.

Findings of the study reveal that areas that experience greater population growth also have increased changes in the number of small business. The growth rates of rural small businesses are influenced by different factors during periods of varying economic conditions.

This report presents an analysis of the small business sector and the evolving environment in which it operates. The report identifies a number of important recommendations along with an implementation mechanism, which will allow this sector to continue to flourish and grow.

Using 2002 sole proprietorship data, the impact of
location on net income is analyzed using a sample
of 1.6 million profitable nonfarm sole proprietorships
that took a home office business deduction (homebased
businesses) and 1.9 million that deducted rent for other business property (non-homebased businesses). Findings reveal that in 2002, homebased businesses earn lower average receipts ($62,523) and net income ($22,569) than businesses operated in rented space. Homebased firms gain a higher return on gross revenues compared with non-HBBs.

The primary objectives of this paper are to analyze and discuss the development of Malaysian SMEs and their role, as well as various contributions, in the national economy. The paper goes further by reviewing extant literature to identify the major challenges facing this sector in Malaysia as well as government policies aimed at the development of SMEs.

In this paper, the authors empirically test whether SBA-guaranteed lending has a greater impact on economic performance in low-income markets. Using local labor market employment rates as a measure of economic performance, the authors find evidence consistent with this proposition.

This paper examines the characteristics of a sample of 231 firms that did receive private equity (PE) and compare them to those of a matched sample. The authors show that firms rely on PE funding when there are no alternatives, i.e.when their debt capacity is limited, due to financial and bankruptcy risk and due to important investments in intangibles. PE investors, from their side, select firms with substantial growth options. Further, firms that receive PE have grown more before the funding event than companies that did not receive PE.