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The House voted yesterday to make permanent a tax break allowing small businesses to write off up to $500,000 in new equipment purchases, the Wall Street Journal reported today. While the move adds to momentum for congressional efforts to extend a range of now-temporary tax breaks, it also sharpens a conflict between the House and Senate over whether to extend the breaks permanently or temporarily. Yesterday's vote was 272-144, with several dozen Democrats joining Republicans to support the measure. The list of temporary tax breaks, many of which expired at the end of 2013, has grown over the years and now includes over 50 separate provisions affecting businesses as well as individuals. By now, the cost of making them all permanent is proving to be prohibitive — almost $1 trillion over the next decade. But many of the breaks are so popular or important that lawmakers are reluctant to eliminate them.

Empire Die Casting Co. of Macedonia, Ohio, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and hopes to be sold soon, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported yesterday. New Growth Capital Group LLC has submitted a letter of intent to acquire the assets of Empire Die Casting for $11.7 million in cash. New Growth Capital Group would be designated as a stalking-horse bidder for the auction, and Empire Die Casting would pay a break-up fee of $180,000 if New Growth Capital Group is out-bid. The company filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 16 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Akron, Ohio, listing assets of between $10,000,001 and $50 million and liabilities of between $1,000,001 and $10 million. The bid deadline is Dec. 16. Marc Merklin, a managing partner in the Akron office of law firm Brouse McDowell LPA, said that the court will hear the request for the bid procedures on Nov. 5. The main hurdle Empire Die Casting faces is a potential liability in its multiemployer pension plan; Merklin says that the pension plan has a multimillion-dollar liability and is “unworkable” as is.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Rosemary Gambardella has dismissed a bankruptcy petition filed several weeks ago by Women in Support of the Million Man March (WISOMM), a nonprofit group run by longtime Newark, N.J. activist Fredrica Bey, according to a story in the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger. The group, which runs a preschool for low-income children, no longer has money to run the school or pay its employees, according to court documents. A trustee appointed by the court to oversee the bankruptcy said that he would have been forced to close the school if the case moved forward. “The trustee has recommended this case be dismissed, and the court agrees with the trustee’s business judgment,” Gambardella said in her ruling. Earlier this summer, WISOMM failed to make scheduled payments on their property to Wells Fargo and now owes the bank $8.2 million. The bank is expected to move quickly on foreclosure. Bey and her husband, Rayford Scott, had claimed that the charity owes them more than $1 million, but dropped those claims last week. Last year, the U.S. Attorney’s office filed a civil suit against Bey, alleging that she misspent more than $300,000 in federal grant money intended to help at-risk youth.

The surge in bank lending to businesses is raising worries that lenders are competing so aggressively that some will pay for their largess down the road, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis today. Commercial and industrial loans were up 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter and 16 percent for all of 2012, according to data compiled by research firm SNL Financial of Charlottesville, Va. The push comes at a time when many banks have been flooded with deposits as slow economic growth and low interest rates crimp investment. Domestic deposits since mid-2008 have surged 29 percent to $9.06 trillion, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data. Banks of all sizes are fueling the lending trend. Outstanding business loans at Wells Fargo & Co., the country's fourth-largest bank, jumped 12 percent to $187 billion in 2012. The State Bank of Southern Utah, a community lender based in Cedar City, Utah with $715 million in assets, saw a 9 percent jump for the year to $38 million.

Shoppers spent 13 percent more during the four-day U.S. Thanksgiving weekend, heading to stores and jumping online to push Black Friday beyond a one-day extravaganza, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Spending rose to $59.1 billion from Nov. 22 through today from $52.4 billion last year, the National Retail Federation said in a statement. The jump occurred even as Chicago-based researcher ShopperTrak observed a 1.8 percent decline in sales on Black Friday, the traditional start to the shopping season.

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc.'s proposed $7.25 billion settlement of a merchant fee price-fixing case won preliminary approval from a federal court, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. U.S. District Judge John Gleeson after considering arguments by retailers opposed to the deal. The judge’s decision allows plaintiffs to begin signing up more than 7 million retailers that might be eligible to participate. The settlement will be subject to a final approval at a later date.

Retailer groups opposed to Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc.'s $7.25 billion settlement of a lawsuit over merchant credit card fees said they have garnered support from about 1,200 businesses covered by the deal. Trade associations including the National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Community Pharmacists Association and the National Restaurant Association urged U.S. District Judge John Gleeson not to grant initial approval to the settlement, according to objection papers the parties are preparing to submit. The settlement, estimated to cost the card companies and major banks as much as $7.25 billion, would cover about 7 million retailers nationwide.

Hurricane Sandy caused massive disruptions to U.S. businesses and threatened billions of dollars in damage to a region packed with corporate headquarters, retail stores and transportation hubs, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Estimates for the financial consequences of the storm in the U.S. run to the billions of dollars. Disaster-modeling company Eqecat said the storm could cost the insurers between $5 billion and $10 billion. The Global Business Travel Association last year estimated that a large hurricane costs airlines, Amtrak, rental car companies and hotels nearly $700 million in lost or deferred business-travel spending. The broader impacts on the U.S. economy should be "noticeable but temporary," said economists at Moody's Analytics.

Tennessee restaurant chain Back Yard Burgers Inc. is planning to close 20 locations, nearly all of its company-owned locations, after filing for chapter 11 protection last week, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. Back Yard Burgers operates a total of 25 company-owned stores and franchises another 64.

Bargain hunters spent $180,000 scooping up office furnishings and video-game equipment formerly belonging to 38 Studios LLC at the company's Maryland bankruptcy auction Monday, the court-appointed receiver in the case announced yesterday, Providence (R.I.) Business News reported. The first of two auctions scheduled to liquidate 38 Studios’ modest physical assets, the Oct. 16 sale outside Baltimore saw approximately 950 items purchased, including furniture, computers, video-game consoles and other trappings of the defunct game-maker. The proceeds of the auction will go to offset 38 Studios’ $150 million in outstanding debt, with the majority going to the state of Rhode Island to offset the liability of a $75 million loan guarantee made granted the company in 2010. An auction of 38 Studios’ items at its Rhode Island headquarters is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 23 at in Providence.