Without question, small businesses are a major economic driver and source of jobs in our economy.

They are the entrepreneurs and the risk-takers. And their success makes a big difference in our communities and in our lives. These local businesses create opportunity for so many.

In fact, more than 95 percent of West Virginia businesses are small businesses, and they employ half of West Virginia’s private-sector workforce.

Today, I am bringing together a roundtable to hear directly from small-business owners and other local stakeholders in Charleston. That’s because these businesses and their employees stand to benefit greatly from pro-growth tax reform.

Currently, these small businesses face some of the highest tax rates in the world. And those rates vary widely from business to business, leaving many small-business owners unsure what their effective tax rate really is.

A simpler tax code with lower rates is critical for businesses here in West Virginia.

Businesses and individuals spend 6 billion hours annually complying with the tax code. That costs the United States $195 billion a year in lost productivity.

Our small businesses deserve a better system — and that’s what the tax reform debate is all about.

It’s about creating an environment that promotes innovation and growth, and makes small businesses and workers more competitive.

It’s about creating more jobs for the middle class, fairer taxes and bigger paychecks for hard-working West Virginians.

It’s about allowing small businesses to focus on what they do best: creating products, providing important services, and hiring new employees.

Tax reform, as much as any other policy that Congress can advance, will promote growth and provide more job opportunities for West Virginians.

Across the entire country, only two in five distressed communities have seen any job growth during the past five years. And half of America’s job growth has occurred in just 2 percent of the nation’s counties.

It’s no wonder that small businesses have found it difficult to open, let alone succeed, in many parts of the country. Because of our outdated tax code, real wages for most workers have barely increased for decades.

Tax reform can change that. By modernizing the tax code, we can achieve a simpler system with lower rates that is good for businesses and workers, and leads to more jobs in West Virginia.

Hard-working West Virginians deserve a tax system that works for them. We now have an opportunity to deliver, and it’s time we make tax reform a reality.