WASHINGTON – Congressman Vern Buchanan today introduced three new bills to spur American innovation through the development and expansion of tax incentives: the American Innovation Act, the Start-Ups for Cures Act and the More Cures Act.
The American Innovation Act aims to remove some of the initial barriers to creating a business, putting money back in the pockets of our country’s best job creators and setting start-ups on a path toward success.
“As we work to recover from a devastating global pandemic and an overstimulated economy, American businesses are met with runaway inflation and a volatile job market,” said Buchanan. “In this environment, Congress needs to focus on making it easier for businesses to do what they do best – creating jobs, innovating and investing capital back into our communities.”
Specifically, the American Innovation Act would quadruple the amount of start-up costs small business owners can deduct from their federal income taxes, raising it from $5,000 to $20,000. Additionally, Buchanan’s bill increases the threshold for deductions from $50,000 to $120,000 for start-up expenditures like advertising, employees’ salaries and benefits, rent and utilities for their new office space.
In September 2018, the American Innovation Act passed the House with broad bipartisan support.
Buchanan also introduced the Start-Ups for Cures Act and the More Cures Act to encourage the development of new, American-made medical therapies and cures while strengthening our domestic medical supply chain.
“From the early days of the COVID pandemic it became clear how dangerously reliant we are on China and the global supply chain for critical lifesaving treatments and cures,” said Buchanan. “The Start-ups for Cures Act and the More Cures Act will help spur American innovation and place our country back at the top of the global leaderboard for developing new cures.”
The Start-ups for Cures Act creates a refundable tax credit for a portion of research and development (R&D) costs that are incurred by small businesses engaging in medical research. A business is eligible for this refundable tax credit if their gross receipts total less than $1 million and they are engaging in research that includes the development of life-saving drugs and treatments, as well as research on secondary and tertiary materials that help administer these drugs. This will allow small companies to put more of their capital toward working to prepare for the health care challenges of tomorrow.
Additionally, the More Cures Act creates a 14 percent bonus R&D tax credit for companies engaged in drug development research. Expenditures that would qualify a business for the tax credit include research on new life-saving drugs and materials. This bonus tax credit would apply on top of the R&D credit that is already available to companies.
The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), which has endorsed all three of Buchanan’s bills, said “by providing much-needed incentives for research, development, novel manufacturing, and more, it will allow biotech companies – especially small startups – to do what they do best: solve the world’s most complex scientific challenges.”
Buchanan is the Republican Leader on the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee and co-chair of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Healthy Future Task Force.
Last year, legislation mirroring Buchanan’s Securing America’s Medicine Cabinet was included in a House-passed bill. Buchanan introduced his bill in May 2020 to help reduce our reliance on foreign nations for life-saving drugs after China's state-run media agency said Beijing could impose pharmaceutical export controls which would plunge America into “the mighty sea of coronavirus.”
Specifically, the legislation would create a new federal office responsible for stockpiling adequate supplies of critical medicines and encourage companies to ramp up the manufacturing of those drugs.
Buchanan was one of the first in Congress to call for the president to declare a public health emergency and to call for restricting flights into the country from China, the origin of the disease. In 2017, Buchanan proposed that Congress should create a pandemic response fund to combat deadly infectious diseases.
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