Entrepreneurs Expect to Work Even Harder in 2008
If you want to be an entrepreneur, be prepared to work some late and long hours. That’s one primary finding from the second annual Staples National Small Business Survey, which shows that 98% of small business owners regularly work during their time off at vacation, on weekends, and at night. In addition, fifty-four percent expect to work even harder in 2008. More than 2/3 of those surveyed agree that they are “constantly challenged” by not having enough time to complete necessary tasks. While business owners are pressed for time, many are not taking advantages of effective time management strategies and technologies. Seventy percent of those surveyed did not have a written business plan, and more than 84 percent do not utilize new media technologies, such as blogs, podcasts, or virtual meeting tools.
Learn more about the results of the 2nd annual Staples National Small Business survey. The survey was based on an Internet poll that queried more than 300 small businesses with less than 20 employees each.
State Tax Systems and Economic Competitiveness
Analysts of national and state competitiveness tend to focus most of their attention on factors such as education policy, access to capital, and innovation assets. But, the effectiveness of government finance systems also matters. A new study from the Pew Center on the States raises some red flags about how some US states are performing on this front. Effective tax systems provide stable revenue, support efficient tax collection, provide transparent information about incentives, and give localities some say in how their tax dollars are used. Unfortunately, many state tax systems fail on these measures. As a result, these lagging states lack the ability to support new economic engines while continuing to provide outdated and unnecessary incentives to other economic sectors. The research cites the following states as strong performers in terms of effective tax systems: Iowa , Maine , Minnesota , Mississippi , Nebraska , New Jersey , Texas , and Utah . Poor performing states include: Arkansas , Georgia , Louisiana , North Dakota , Oklahoma , and Vermont .
Download the January 2008 Pew Charitable Trust’s Center on the States’ report, Growth and Taxes: Why Outdated State Tax Systems Undercut Economic Vitality and What States can do About It, by Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene. The study also appears in the January 2008 issue of Governing.
Both stories: © 2008 The Public Forum Institute and the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde.
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