News about small businesses

The government submitted a draft Law on Small Business Development to the National Assembly on October 17, proposing that individual businesses with revenue of up to VND 10 billion may choose to pay tax on revenue or on income. Lê Văn Tuấn, director of Keytas Tax Accounting Co., said this would cut compliance costs for households with revenue of VND 3-10 billion, as they would only need to keep an S2a-HKD revenue book and declare sales. He proposed applying the threshold from 2026 rather than 2027, as some National Assembly deputies suggested, because starting in 2027 would skip 2026. He said a transition period of at least 1.5-2 years is needed for a major tax change. He noted that in 2026, businesses only declare and prepay tax as a percentage of revenue each quarter, so early application would not affect current policy.

Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo joined Speaker Robert Rivas and local chambers of commerce at a roundtable celebrating the signing of AB 2116, the Protect Small Businesses from Predatory Lending Act. The law makes the worst practices of unregulated predatory financing providers illegal and creates standards and a registry to improve transparency and hold bad actors accountable. Chambers of commerce backed bringing alternative lenders under licensing frameworks like those for traditional commercial lenders. The California Low-Income Consumer Coalition, a co-sponsor, said low-wage workers operating as small businesses often turn to products such as merchant cash advances, which include confessions of judgment that would be illegal with consumers.