Small businesses can make themselves accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people by taking advantage of a Federal tax credit. In doing the research for this article, I also discovered that in some states, there are additional tax credits for a small business that makes itself accessible to deaf people. If you know about any more states with disabled access tax credits beyond the ones already mentioned in this article, please let me know.
In these hard times, small businesses need any competitive edge they can get. The edge can be as simple as installing a system like OrderAssist. The Indianapolis Star reports that a restaurant that installed the system, found it had gained customers with hearing loss, and word of mouth was spread within the local deaf community, resulting in more customers.
Jamie:
I have pointed this out as being an option for some small businesses to take advantage of in order to help themselves pay for such things as installation of captioning devices in movie theaters. There is currently, in Kentucky, a bill up for consideration to enable a tax credit for more employment of people with disabilities, but nothing new relating to accommodations credits here.
As further research, going through the University of Michigan’s online grant website, it is an aggregator of small business grants available through the federal government, you can find many similar federal grants for small businesses that make wish to make their businesses more accessible. Sadly, the businesses I have spoken to about this have seemed very reticent about using grant monies to help themselves, a sad reminder that sometimes even a little “free” money still won’t change attitudes toward those with disabilities.
Eddie
(Thumpaflash)