Iowa ranks 44th in the nation on a new study of states that’re considered good for small business development, but the survey has its critics. Dave Lentell, spokesman for the U-S Small Business Administration office in Des Moines, says South Dakota may have ranked first on the survey but he says it doesn’t look at the big picture. They have no income or corporate taxes, but South Dakota only has 70-thousand some small businesses with revenues of one-point-six billion. Compare that to Iowa, we have 207-thousand small businesses with revenues over five billion. Lentell says the study put a lot of emphasis on the burdens government places on small businesses through taxes, but it says nothing about the money government -provides- to small businesses.In the last three years, South Dakota only received 431 S-B-A loans worth 69-point-six million dollars, while Iowa got one-thousand-138 loans worth more than 193-million. Lentell says the report ranks Iowa toward the bottom of the list with many other states that are considered economic powerhouses for small business, including California, New York and Minnesota.Other factors the report doesn’t consider include: the quality of life in Iowa, the top education program, our location, transportation and other things that offset the tax burden for small businesses to succeed. The survey was conducted by the Small Business Survival Institute.
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