If you don’t know what HB 500 is, or why it is important to our industry and your shop shame on you!

HB 500 is the culmination of 3 years of hard work, late nights and long drives by YOUR ASA and will save our Texas member (and every shop owner in Texas) millions of dollars every year in taxes. First off HB 500 cuts our Franchise (Margin) tax rate in half, from a full1% to the same rate dealerships pay, 1/2%. This means that if you Franchise tax bill was $1900 last year it would be half that, $950 next year. But wait, if you owe less than $1000 you don’t pay, so your bill would be NOTHING! If your bill was $5000 last year it would be only $2500 next year. This is a vital savings to shop owners! It means the difference between upgrading equipment, offering training to our staff or paying taxes. It means a vacation for the owner, a raise for a great employee or just being able to pay some of the other bills on time. It pays for your ASA dues, probably several times over for many of us.

But wait that’s not all! In the past there was a million dollar threshold for the tax. In other words if you did less than a million in gross sales you didn’t pay the tax, but if you did a million and one dollars you were taxed on the entire amount. Under the new bill the first million is an exemption and you will only pay tax on sales over the first million. This significantly reduces the tax shop owners will owe next year. If your shop is doing less than a million a year you may think this doesn’t matter to you. Don’t plan to grow, huh? Even if your car count doesn’t go up how long do you think it will take to reach that million dollar mark with just the increase in parts and labor pricing that is accelerating each year? More significantly in my opinion is that YOUR ASA stood up for our industry and won. When the law makers think they can just do whatever they want and we will quietly sit by and swallow it they will dig deeper and deeper into our businesses and pockets. Today many of our State Legislators know what the Automotive Service Association is and who they represent. They know that we will take the time to drive to