Here’s some good news out of DC

How often do we get to say that?

The Wall St. Journal has a story out this morning that Congress is considering a tax break for Angel Investors.

The idea, as reported, is that investors would get to write off as much as $250,000 per company — up to $500,000 per year — in Angel investments.

It sounds awesome, though part of me wonders if the unintended consequence will be way too many Angel investors, and too many investments going to stinky companies. The investor will have already written off the investment, so they may see any possible gain down the road as something like winning the lottery. The upshot: Who cares if they don’t really understand the business model or have much faith in the founders? They were going to be writing a check to the IRS, and now they will be writing it to some startup, so how much do they care if the company they invest in is going to passionately go after a new idea?
I think it’s a risk worth taking. All the good jobs are being created by startups, and it’s just the way the world is going. If there are a few more dogs out there, oh well.
(One shameless plug joined with a hint of Catch 22: My company, LgDb, the Legislative Database, would be really useful to the Wall St. Journal, and any other blog writer or publisher of any kind to allow people to easily see the proposed legislation, and all of the associated links. That way people could easily read the actual bill, which is something I wanted to do after reading that Journal story, but I knew there was no easy way to do it. If the bill was in Colorado, I could do that now, but LgDb doesn’t yet have Federal stuff. For that, we need an angel investment. Catch-22.)

By the way, I know that the fact that LgDb is looking for investors is not totally consistent with the idea of Credit Card VC, but as I write in the Credit Card VC manifesto, if an idea is big you shouldn’t stifle it by keeping others away from helping you to grow. You can’t throw a big party AND keep all your beer in the fridge.