WMMMA announces Patriot Award
The association wants to reward those members that take the time and energy away from their day to day responsibilities to concentrate on critical legislative and regulatory issues that are or will impact their businesses and the woodworking industry. So, we have created the WMMA Patriot Award for those members that:

1. Host their local, state or federal representative at their plant and;
2. Participate in the DC Fly-in;
3. Receive press of the local event.

The process is simple and the WMMA has developed tools to assist.

1. Hosting your local, state or federal representative at your plant

This is the easiest and most important part. On the WMMA website, we have posted a brief guide (members' only area) to assist you in contacting your representative, inviting him to visit your plant and witnessing first hand the importance to his jurisdiction of your business --- jobs, revenues, economic development, etc. It’s your chance to demonstrate how legislative and regulatory issues directly impact all three.

2. Participating the WMMA DC Fly-in

Each year, the WMMA organizes a march on Capitol Hill, usually in February, giving members the opportunity to call on their representatives to pay attention to issues near and dear to their businesses. The WMMA pays for all travel and related costs to include air fare and hotels. We ask that you donate your time.

3. Receiving press

Again, this is easy and we can assist. The Plant Tour Guide referred to in point (1) above also includes support on issuing press releases and gaining support from your local press. Send us a copy of the press clipping to:

Harold Zassenhaus
WMMA
500 Citadel Dr.
Suite 200
Commerce, CA 90040
[email protected]
301 652 0693

4. Legislative and Regulatory issues

The WMMA has developed papers on the most important issues facing your business and the industry as a whole. On the WMMA website, (members’ only area) you will find two sets of papers: (1) in-depth issue papers on regulatory or legislative initiatives in which we have a stake and; (2) “one pagers”, summarizing positions on priority issues. The issue papers are for your information; the “one pagers” can be used as “leave behinds” for the representatives with whom you plan to meet. I encourage you to print the “one pagers” on your company stationery and modify each as you see fit; for example replacing the paragraph on the WMMA with one on your company. Make sufficient copies so if you can’t win over your legislator you can leave him/her something to chew on and for you to follow up.

In brief, the major issue papers are on the following:

Manufacturing Reinvestment Account: H.R. 110 and S. 1237 amends the Internal Revenue Code to establish tax-exempt manufacturing reinvestment accounts (MRAs) for taxpayers engaged in a manufacturing business.
Simplified R&D Credit: Introduce and sponsor legislation to make the R&D credit permanent and include an alternative for smaller businesses that provides for a simplified “flat” credit.
Combustible Dust: OSHA has issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and has convened related stakeholder meetings to evaluate possible regulatory methods to control combustible dust. We want to ensure that any proposal addresses only those risks which have been clearly determined to be significant and to ensure, in such cases, that the proposal provides reasonable, specific standards and does not impose burdensome, expensive requirements upon businesses.
Estate Tax Relief: the current tax relief expires in December 2012. The association endorses passing estate tax relief legislation to provide a permanent exemption of $5 million per individual (indexed) and a top rate of 35 percent.
Direct Expensing: In 2013, the amounts revert to pre-2003 levels of $25,000 and $200,000, without indexing. The association endorses making permanent the current temporary amounts with indexing.
Depreciation Bonus: An additional first-year depreciation deduction had been in place equal to 50 percent of the adjusted basis of qualified property placed in service during 2008, 2009, and 2010 .The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act, Public Law 111-312, extends and expands the additional first-year depreciation to equal 100 percent of the cost of qualified property placed in service after September 8, 2010 and before January 1, 2012, and provides for a 50 percent first-year additional depreciation deduction for qualified property placed in service after December 31, 2011 and before January 1, 2013.
Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT): The current law extended the temporary increases in the income levels at which the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) applies. This extension is referred to as the AMT “patch.” The only realistic way to resolve the problem of the Alternative Minimum Tax is to junk it during a tax reform effort. Otherwise, the revenue it generates would be difficult to replace.
Each year at the Woodworking Industry Conference (WIC) the WMMA will recognize each award recipient.

How to Participate

No sign up form, no gimmicks, just do it.

If in addition to the guide and papers we have produced, you need assistance along the way, call:
Frank Kobilsek, Chairman, WMMA Public Policy Committee, [email protected], 815 539 7451 or Harold Zassenhaus, WMMA staff, [email protected], 301 652 0693. If you want more insight into specific federal legislative or regulatory issues, such as where your representative stands on the issue, contact the WMMA National Affairs Counsel, John Satagaj, [email protected], 202 639 8888.

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