GSP refund checks received to date by Ohio small business

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The pictures above (or at least the checks in them) are worth SO much more.

The checks are the first GSP refunds for The Cannon Group, a small business in Westerville, Ohio that imports plastic bags for newspapers from Sri Lanka. For nearly 2 years while GSP was expired, the company had to pay higher taxes on every shipment.

Now that money is coming back – one check for each shipment – and is being put to good use.

The Cannon Group plans to add one full-time employee in September and is looking to add at least one new salesperson in the next 6 months. The refunds also saved the job of another employee that would’ve gone away due to the loss of other business. For this Ohio small business, at least 3 net jobs are tied to GSP renewal and refunds.

These moves shouldn’t come as a surprise. President Frank Cannon said nearly a year ago:

“With a loss of $700,000 to our bottom line we cannot afford to hire any new staff. If Congress renews GSP retroactively, we would definitely hire more staff.”

Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Pat Tiberi (R-OH) cited the company, based in the district, when introducing the legislation back in April. At the time, Mr. Tiberi said GSP renewal would help companies like The Cannon Group grow their businesses and “ultimately create jobs.”

And he was right. In addition to The Cannon Group, companies like Thompson Traders, Kona Bicycle, and Primetac all are benefiting immediately from GSP renewal.

What steps are you taking now that GSP has been renewed? We want to hear from you! 

K2 Coolers is one of the nearly 700 companies and associations that have come out in support of GSP renewal – and not the only supporter list company mentioned during the mark up. In his introduction of the bill, Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Pat Tiberi (R-OH) noted that GSP renewal would help companies like The Cannon Group in Westerville grow their businesses and “ultimately create jobs.”

Be sure to watch the clip of Dr. Boustany’s remarks and if you’re active on Twitter, please click here and retweet him!

What Do We Do?

At the most basic level, we make sure they know that GSP is scheduled to expire on July 31.  Sounds obvious, but… Congress deals with many, many issues and if GSP importers don’t remind them about GSP, who will?

We also highlight some key facts and figures from our GSP Annual Report.

Most importantly, we show them the local impacts of GSP.  For both of today’s meetings, that involved our new 2012 Ohio report:

Since our meetings were on the House as opposed to the Senate side, we used the Panjiva import/export database to find constituent companies importing goods receiving duty-free treatment because of GSP.

For Ohio’s 16^th District, this includes well-known companies like Energizer, which imports batteries from Indonesia, and Moen, which imports faucet parts from Thailand and Turkey, as well as smaller companies like Zibex, which imports chemicals from India.  Here’s what the district-specific information for Ohio’s 12^th District looked like:

So when we set up meetings, drilling down to the most local level possible is always our goal.  Tomorrow, we’ll talk about why it is so important.