Flaw in Law Puts Rural And Urban Enterprise Communities At Risk Of Being Left On Wrong Side Of Digital Divide - Citizen Action Needed

Raleigh, NC, 12 September 2000 - Over one hundred urban and rural U.S. Enterprise Communities are at risk of being left out of important small business investment tax incentives in the "American Community Renewal and New Markets Empowerment Act" (S. 2936). Immediate citizen action is needed to ensure that the Senate Finance Committee Markup of this bill will include the nation's Enterprise Communities in the capital gains roll-over provisions which currently are slated to benefit only the nation's Empowerment Zones.

Three small business activists -- Sohodojo, TheTaxman86 and Gaines Associates -- have banded together to organize a grassroots letter-writing campaign to bring this inequitable situation to the attention of the U.S. Congress. Sohodojo has developed a web page to facilitate informing citizens and encouraging them to write their Senators regarding this important issue. Full information is available at http://sohodojo.com/ezec/s2936-alert.html.

"Effective tax incentives to stimulate small business development, not hand-outs, are needed to revitalize our urban and rural distressed communities," said Jim Schneider whose 'The Taxman86 Speaks' newsletter first brought this oversight in wording to the petition organizers' attention.

S. 2936 is due out of committee this Thursday, September 14th, and will be under deliberation for perhaps a week to 10 days, so time is of the essence in spreading the word about this important issue.

Sohodojo is the Raleigh-based Entrepreneurial Free Agent and Dejobbed Small Business Applied Research and Development Lab working on Open Source technologies to facilitate 'Small is Good' business models in the New Economy.    

Jim Schneider is a San Diego tax lawyer and financial planning consultant active in local and national urban economic redevelopment. He is also an Advisory Board member and thought-leader of the LegalSIG at Sohodojo.

Gene Gaines is a Washington DC-based computer and business consultant and small business activist.

For more information or comments, please contact: Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky of Sohodojo at 919-859-3513 (hosts_at_sohodojo.com), Jim Schneider at 619-696-9422 (taxman86_at_pacbell.net) or Gene Gaines at 703-433-2081 (gene.gaines_at_gainesgroup.com). (Please note: Manually edit the email addresses before sending by replacing '_at_' with '@'. Thank you.)

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