On Thursday, the Iowa House passed a bill that encourages more employee owned businesses. The bill would give current business owners up to $700,000 in tax breaks if they sold their business to their employees in the first year of the program. They hope that encouraging employee ownership would help businesses stay in their community when the owner is looking to retire. They hope it will impact rural areas especially, since new buyers for business may not be present in smaller communities. Chuck Underhill, the Store Director at the Washington Hy-Vee, says being an employee owned company helps to motivate employees, because they have a say in how the company is run, and they know that their work is benefiting themselves directly. KCII will continue to follow this bill as it makes its way to the Senate.

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