Startup America launches Kansas, Missouri chapters.

President Obama has unveiled a plan to cut taxes on small businesses, help start-ups get financing and make it easier for companies to bring highly skilled foreign workers into the country.

The news came as Startup America Partnership, a nonprofit group that aims to support entrepreneurs, celebrated its first anniversary and launched regional affiliates in several states, including Kansas and Missouri. The Kauffman Foundation is a chief sponsor of the initiative.

“One year ago today, I called for an all-hands-on-deck effort to ensure that America remains the best place on Earth to turn a great idea into a successful business,” Obama said in a written statement. “The private sector responded, with the Startup America Partnership launching new entrepreneurial networks all across the country. 

“Today, we’re taking new steps that build on that progress, and I urge Congress to send me a common-sense bipartisan bill that does even more to expand access to capital and cut taxes for America’s entrepreneurs and small businesses.”

The president’s plan, the Startup America Legislative Agenda, aims to do the following:

• Offer a 10 percent tax credit on new payroll expenses for small businesses. That “new payroll” could include new hires or wage increases made this year. The credit would be capped at $500,000, so small businesses would be the primary beneficiaries.
• Increase funding for the Small Business Investment Company Program from $3 billion to $4 billion annually.
• Expand mini-offering limits by raising the offering limit under Regulation A from $5 million to $50 million.
• Permanently double the amount of start-up expenses that entrepreneurs can claim as deductions. The new limit would be $10,000.
• Expand a tax cut that gets rid of capital gains on certain investments in small businesses. The White House wants to make this tax cut permanent.
• Extend 100-percent first-year depreciation for a year, effective for qualified property acquired and placed in service before 2013.
• Eliminate country-specific limits on some worker visa categories, which should make it easier for high-skilled foreign workers and entrepreneurs to work in America.

Read about the plan in detail here.

The Startup America Partnership, which receives no government funding and is separate from the Obama administration’s Startup America effort, tries to help fledgling entrepreneurs get training and network with other businesses. Larger companies such as Microsoft, LinkedIn and Salesforce.com are offering special services to the start-ups who join the organization.

The new Missouri affiliate of Startup America held an event Jan. 31 in St. Louis while the new Kansas affiliate gathered in Topeka.