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With job creation and helping small businesses grow his top priorities, Congressman Jared Polis today joined with a bipartisan House coalition to introduce the Startup Act 2.0 – a bill targeted at encouraging startup companies to grow and succeed.

"Colorado needs more jobs now, which means we should be doing everything possible to encourage the launch of great new American companies," said Polis. "By helping startups grow and succeed, we unleash the creative energies of entrepreneurs and innovators to take their great ideas and turn them into new job creating businesses. This is exactly the kind of bipartisan, job-creating legislation that Congress should act on immediately."

Between 1980 and 2005, companies less than five years old accounted for nearly all net job creation in the U.S., creating 3 million jobs each year on average.

The Startup Act 2.0 (H.R. 5893) would:

• Create a new STEM visa so that U.S.-educated foreign students who graduate with a master’s or Ph.D. in science, technology, engineering or mathematics can receive a green card and stay in this country where their talent and ideas can fuel growth and create American jobs.
• Establish an Entrepreneur’s Visa for legal immigrants so they can remain in the United States, launch businesses and create jobs, and eliminates the per-country caps for employment-based immigrant visas, which hinders U.S. employers from recruiting the top-tier talent they need to grow.
• Make permanent the exemption of capital gains taxes on the sale of startup stock held for at least five years, so investors can provide financial stability at a critical juncture of firm growth.
• Create a targeted research and development tax credit for young startups less than five years old and with less than $5 million in annual receipts. This R&D credit is designed to allow startups to offset employee taxes, freeing up resources to help these young companies expand and create jobs.
• Use existing federal R&D funding to better support university initiatives designed to bring cutting-edge R&D to the marketplace more quickly, where it can propel economic growth.
• Require government agencies to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of proposed “major rules” with an economic impact of $100 million or more.
• Direct the U.S. Department of Commerce to assess state and local policies that aid in the development of new businesses.

Polis coauthored the Startup Act with his House colleagues Michael Grimm (R-NY), Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), Kevin Yoder (R-KS), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Russ Carnahan (D-MO), and Robert Dold (R-IL). Companion legislation was recently introduced by Senators Jerry Moran (R-KA), Mark Warner (D-VA), Chris Coons (D-DE) and Marco Rubio (R-FL).

The bill has received industry support from Google, National Small Business Association (NSBA), CTIA, Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Financial Services Forum, Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), TechAmercia, Information Technology Industry (ITI), Compete America, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and TechNet.