Facing a turbulent economic climate at the dawn of 2025, American entrepreneurs contended with a perfect storm of persistent inflationary pressures, pervasive economic uncertainty, and the looming expiration of critical tax relief measures that threatened to stifle investment and growth. This challenging landscape, compounded by what many viewed as regulatory overreach, created a significant drag on small business confidence and the nation’s overall economic vibrancy. In response to these pressing concerns, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) launched a vigorous advocacy campaign, delivering an urgent and clear message to the new Trump Administration and Congress: prioritizing the needs of the nation’s entrepreneurs was essential to unleashing broad-based economic potential. Throughout a pivotal year, this focused effort, communicated through a steady stream of high-level meetings, policy briefs, and public statements, successfully elevated the small business agenda, leading to a series of significant legislative and policy victories that reshaped the operating environment for millions of American businesses.
A Landmark Achievement in Tax Policy
A cornerstone of the year’s success, as detailed in a comprehensive review, was the passage and signing into law of a major tax package in early July, colloquially known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” This legislation directly confronted the SBE Council’s primary tax-related objectives by establishing long-term certainty and bolstering investment incentives for small businesses. The Council had long emphasized that a predictable and stable tax landscape is a prerequisite for entrepreneurs to confidently make the long-range decisions necessary for hiring, expansion, and capital investment. Leading into 2025, the organization issued stark warnings about the profound risks posed by the scheduled expiration of key provisions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Citing compelling data from its recurring “Small Business Check-Up Surveys,” the Council provided concrete evidence that business owners were already curtailing investments and scaling back growth plans due to the profound uncertainty surrounding the future of these tax measures. Championed by Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans, with robust backing from their Senate counterparts, the bill served as a decisive response to these widespread concerns, providing the stability that the small business community had been demanding.
The legislation delivered a monumental victory for the vast majority of small businesses structured as pass-through entities, such as S corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships, by making the 20 percent qualified business income deduction under Section 199A permanent. This single provision provided enduring certainty and dramatically simplified long-range financial planning for millions of enterprises. Further enhancing investment incentives, the bill significantly expanded immediate expensing capabilities through Section 179 and fully restored 100 percent bonus depreciation. In a critical move for innovation-driven sectors, it also reinstated the immediate expensing of research and development (R&D) costs, including retroactive provisions to benefit businesses that had already made such crucial investments. Recognizing that most small business owners are taxed at individual rates, the bill also made the lower individual income tax rates established in 2017 permanent, allowing entrepreneurs to retain a greater share of their earnings for reinvestment into their companies and communities.
Beyond these core business provisions, the tax package incorporated a range of measures designed to support both business owners and their employees. To protect the continuity of family-owned and closely held enterprises, the legislation permanently increased the federal exemptions for the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes, substantially reducing the number of businesses exposed to the burdensome “death tax.” The bill also featured family-friendly relief, increasing the child tax credit to $2,200 and raising the standard deduction by $1,500 for families. In a move to stimulate the flow of capital to new ventures, the legislation created new incentives for individuals to invest in startups, achieved through the permanent extension of Opportunity Zones and positive adjustments to the qualified small business stock (QSBS) exclusion. Additionally, the inclusion of popular pro-worker measures, such as making tips and overtime pay non-taxable, garnered strong support from the small business community. The bill’s reach extended to fostering a stronger overall ecosystem for business competitiveness by including reforms aimed at boosting energy affordability and modernizing critical US infrastructure.
Restoring Balance to the Regulatory State
The second major area of progress highlighted by the SBE Council involved a substantial shift toward a more rational and accountable regulatory environment. The organization argued that unchecked regulatory activism under the previous administration had imposed crushing costs, stifled innovation, and constrained capital availability for small firms. This sentiment was validated by a Q4 2024 survey, which found that an overwhelming 88 percent of small business owners believed that reducing regulatory burdens should be a top national priority. A key victory in this domain was the decision by the Department of the Treasury and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to remove US small businesses from the beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting requirements mandated by the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). Implemented through interim final rules, this action immediately lifted a compliance mandate described as both costly and intrusive, providing tangible relief to millions of entrepreneurs. The Council’s ongoing work on this issue now includes advocating for the complete purging of any small business data that had already been collected.
The report also lauded a series of policy initiatives and executive orders from the Trump administration aimed at systematically dismantling regulatory barriers across the economy. These included executive actions designed to reduce anti-competitive regulations, repeal rules deemed unlawful under recent Supreme Court decisions, and guarantee fair banking access by curbing regulatory overreach. Further administrative actions established a National Energy Dominance Council to streamline domestic energy production and initiated a Zero-Based Budgeting process to sunset outdated energy regulations. A significant development in the technology sector was the rollout of America’s AI Action Plan, which prioritizes innovation over prescriptive regulation. This approach, strongly supported by the SBE Council, aims to remove barriers to AI adoption and encourage private-sector investment, reflecting survey data showing that 96 percent of small business AI users plan to continue investing in these vital tools. The Council remains actively engaged in the development of a federal AI regulatory framework to prevent a restrictive patchwork of state-level regulations.
Fostering Startup Creation and Small Business Growth
Addressing the persistent challenge of access to capital was another central pillar of the SBE Council’s 2025 agenda. The organization cited survey data showing that 57 percent of business owners at the end of 2024 felt that a lack of credit and capital was actively hampering their growth prospects. While the comprehensive tax bill provided significant indirect relief, the Council also worked to advance other targeted measures. The review highlighted two executive orders from President Trump aimed squarely at this issue: the US Investment Accelerator, which directs federal agencies to identify and remove barriers to investment in small firms, and “Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors,” an initiative aimed at unlocking new investment choices for over 90 million retirement savers, which would in turn inject a substantial new pool of capital into the nation’s startup ecosystem. These administrative actions were designed to create a more dynamic and accessible funding environment for emerging companies.
On the legislative front, the House of Representatives passed the INVEST Act (H.R. 3383), a comprehensive package of reforms strongly supported by the SBE Council. This bill was crafted to provide entrepreneurs with more options, greater certainty, and increased flexibility when raising the capital necessary to launch and scale their businesses. It included provisions from numerous other bills specifically designed to help rural job creators, empower angel investors, and streamline the process for companies pursuing public offerings. The Council is also continuing to push for Senate action on the Made in America Manufacturing Finance Act (H.R. 3174), a crucial piece of legislation that would double the Small Business Administration (SBA) loan limit for small manufacturers to $10 million. These combined efforts represented a multifaceted strategy to ensure that entrepreneurs, from main street retailers to high-tech startups, have the financial resources they need to succeed and innovate in a competitive global market.
Advancing Affordable Healthcare Choices
The SBE Council’s 2025 review also detailed significant progress made on the critical issue of healthcare, which consistently ranks as a top concern for small business owners due to relentlessly escalating costs. The organization’s advocacy priorities focused on enhancing affordability, flexibility, transparency, and choice in the healthcare market. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” contributed to these goals by expanding and modernizing Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), providing a more powerful tool for individuals and families to manage medical expenses. In addition, executive actions were taken to strengthen healthcare price transparency, empowering consumers with more information to make informed decisions. A notable administrative achievement was the launch of the CMS Rural Health Transformation Program, an initiative specifically designed to improve healthcare access and quality in rural America, a region often underserved by the existing healthcare system.
A major legislative achievement in this area was the House’s passage in December of the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act. This SBE Council-supported bill aims to control costs and expand choices through several key reforms. It would codify rules for “Custom Health Option and Individual Care Expense” (CHOICE) arrangements, allowing employers to provide tax-free funds for employees to purchase their own individual market plans, thereby offering greater personalization. The legislation also seeks to expand access to Association Health Plans (AHPs), which allow small businesses to band together across state lines to gain the negotiating power and more affordable coverage options typically available only to large corporations. Finally, the bill institutes significant reforms to improve transparency and fairness in the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) market, a direct effort to combat the inflated prescription drug prices that place a heavy burden on both employers and their workers. The Council has identified securing the final passage of this healthcare legislation as a paramount priority.
A Foundation for Future Progress
The legislative and regulatory advancements of 2025 established a significantly more favorable landscape for American entrepreneurs, directly addressing long-standing concerns about tax uncertainty, regulatory burdens, and access to capital. The passage of a comprehensive tax package provided the long-term stability needed for confident investment, while a series of executive and congressional actions began to roll back costly regulations and open new avenues for business growth and healthcare affordability. These hard-won victories were the result of sustained and focused advocacy that successfully placed the needs of small businesses at the forefront of the national policy debate. Building on this momentum, the focus now shifts to ensuring these gains are solidified and expanded upon. The agenda for the coming year will involve pushing several key House-passed bills through the Senate, from those aimed at simplifying tax disputes and mandating IRS accountability to measures that would further streamline regulatory processes and modernize environmental reviews. The groundwork laid in 2025 created a solid foundation, but the work of fostering an environment where entrepreneurship can fully flourish remains an ongoing endeavor.
