When an owner retires, their business should not have to close.
Every year, nearly 96,000 Massachusetts workers lose their jobs because the business they worked for closed permanently. Some of those closures are due to ordinary market forces. A growing share are something else: an owner who wanted to retire, but could not find anyone to take over. There’s an obvious buyer right there: people who already run the business.
Opportunity to Own would give retiring owners a real option to sell to their own employees, at a price they choose, and with a tax break for doing so. It allows a generation to retire, by making sure that when a business changes hands, the people who already create value for it get a chance to buy it. It is not often that solutions pay for themselves. This one more than does.
WHY WORKER OWNERSHIP AND THE OTO BILL ARE IDEAL FOR THIS MOMENT
%
of small businesses brought to market never find a buyer
$
returned to the Commonwealth for every $1 in foregone tax revenue, under the most conservative assumptions
~%
of Americans support giving workers a chance to buy the business when it is sold or closed
OTO IS GAINING SUPPORT! BE ONE OF OUR ENDORSERS!
