Governor Newsom signs legislation aimed at helping small businesses

LOS ANGELES - We all know that small businesses have taken a huge hit during the pandemic. Now, Governor Newsom has signed a trio of bills aimed at helping them.

The three bills are:

Assembly 1577 which allows small businesses to exclude PPP (or Paycheck Protection Program) loans from gross income for state taxes.

Senate Bill 1447 authorizes $100 million dollars for small business tax credits to encourage hiring. That comes to up $1000 per employee to the employer.

And, Senate Bill115 accelerates $561 million in state bond funding to help jumpstart construction projects.

The Governor hopes these measures will help.

At a midday news conference, he said, “In fact, by one estimate - survey recently came out - 44% of businesses in this state .. small businesses are feeling vulnerable to the pressures of this pandemic … so much so that they believe they are likely to close in the not too distance future."

That is a jaw-dropping percentage of small businesses that are looking at the prospect of a financial cliff so pronounced that they simply can’t keep their doors open or can’t even envision reopening their doors that have been temporarily closed by this pandemic.”

The Governor says nearly half of the businesses in California are small. He calls them the "lifeblood" of the state and says many have struggled during the pandemic. One of those is Yogurt Stop in West Hollywood.

FOX 11 reached out to them to find out if the state help… would have a positive impact on them. We asked the shop's co-owner Marta Knittel.

She told us, “We look at our business this way… every little revenue stream helps.

So, if there’s a tax credit for each employee - a one-time one-shot deal - we would never say no. We do not look a gift horse in the mouth.

"We would say thank you. We’d take it.”