Mount Prospect

Q. What signs of economic turnaround do you see in the community your chamber serves? A: Mount Prospect is fortunate to have the Randhurst Village Development underway with targeted completion in April 2011.Q. What type of new development will be most prevalent?A: Retail.Q. How optimistic are you that vacant storefronts and office buildings will be filled during this turnaround? Why or why not?A: Other areas of Mount Prospect (non-Randhurst) are still having difficulty in filling those vacant stores. Small businesses are not able to get the financing they need for a start up because of the new scrutiny over the banking industry. Federal requirements and regulations are hindering growth in the largest sector of business (99.7 percent), small business.Q. What do you think local, state and/or national government leaders could do to enhance the recovery?A: It is primarily state and national leaders that have to focus on providing incentives for businesses to hire. There needs to be some easing of credit for the small-business man.Q. Is there any pending legislation at those levels you particularly support? Any you oppose? A: The state legislature has closed down until after election, basically. I doubt we'll find much hope there. The chamber opposes US H.R. 4213. Many of these provisions would make significant changes to long-standing aspects of U.S. tax law and policy and have never been considered in hearings or other bills.Changes to the tax treatment of small businesses by increasing payroll taxes on S corporation shareholders - the chamber is concerned this provision would apply to capital investments made by businesses engaged in the service sector, hurting their ability to invest and create jobs. Further, by targeting service sector S corporations, this proposal would increase taxes on small business owners who are fully complying with the law. Finally, the chamber is concerned that this provision would add to the tax code's complexity by creating new categories of business activity that will have to be defined and litigated. Then there are changes to provisions that affect the competitiveness of American worldwide companies. This same legislation contains numerous changes to long-standing U.S. international tax laws that are severely detrimental to the ability of American worldwide companies to compete globally, create jobs and stimulate economic growth. For example: Denial of foreign tax credit with respect to foreign income not subject to U.S. taxation by reason of covered asset acquisitions.Limitation on the use of Section 956 for foreign tax credit planning (i.e., the "hopscotch" rule); Section 956, a long-standing provision of the (tax) code, allows companies to repatriate cash to the United States in a tax-efficient manner.While the economy needs an extension of expiring provisions, the chamber cannot support legislation which imposes onerous, permanent tax increases to pay for the temporary extension of these provisions. These tax increases will stifle job creation and stunt economic growth.Q. Do you agree that this will be a jobless recovery or are the suburbs more or less immune to that?A: No, I don't agree that this will be a jobless recovery. In order to have a recovery we need to create jobs. All of the politicians should be hearing this loud and clear. It's about jobs, jobs, jobs. We need to give business the incentives to create jobs.Q. What is your chamber doing to best position its membership for the economic rebound?A: We have been conducting a series of Jumpstart workshops with our library and Harper College to keep our businesses thriving in difficult times.Q. What is your town's biggest economic development wish?A: To position our new Randhurst Village as the "jewel" of the Northwest suburbs.Q. What is your community's single greatest asset or selling point to potential developers?A: Our location, close to O'Hare, transportation to downtown Chicago, with a vibrant retail community and strong schools that build a vital work force.