To further meet the needs of U.S. small businesses and non-profits, the U.S. Small Business Administration reopened the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and EIDL Advance program portal to all eligible applicants experiencing economic impacts due to COVID-19 today.“The SBA is strongly committed to working around the clock, providing dedicated emergency assistance to the small businesses and non-profits that are facing economic disruption due to the COVID-19 impact.  With the reopening of the EIDL assistance and EIDL Advance application portal to all new applicants, additional small businesses and non-profits will be able to receive these long-term, low interest loans and emergency grants – reducing the economic impacts for their businesses, employees and communities they support,” said SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza.  “Since EIDL assistance due to the pandemic first became available to small businesses located in every state and territory, SBA has worked to provide the greatest amount of emergency economic relief possible.  To meet the unprecedented need, the SBA has made numerous improvements to the application and loan closing process, including deploying new technology and automated tools.” Learn more

U.S. Small Business Administration409 3rd St, SW. Washington DC 20416 www.sba.gov

May 31, 2020
House Passes PPP Loan Forgiveness Bill, Treasury Issues Harsh Forgiveness Regulations—What You Need To Know

June 3, 2020, 7:02 pm
Senate passes bill lengthening coronavirus small-business loan terms

PPP forgiveness changes coming as Senate passes House bill

The Senate approval sends the House bill, called the Paycheck Protection Flexibility Act, to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.

{{Update June 5 – Bill signed into law.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/05/coronavirus-relief-trump-signs-bill-to-ease-limits-on-small-business-loans.html

Washington has processed 4.4 million forgivable loans valued at a total of $510 billion. A total of $659 billion has been provided by Congress for the loan program, which is part of broader coronavirus emergency aid totaling around $3 trillion so far.

The new legislation, passed by the House on March and passed by the Senate on June 3, has made some well-needed changes to the program.

The two most remarkable changes regarding loan forgiveness are:

•   increasing the 8-week spending timeline to 24 weeks
•   moving the June 30 deadline to December 31
•   changing the 75% requirement for use for payroll to 60% - thus allowing 40% of the PPP loan to be used for other business expenses

another summary by restaurant.org:

•   Extending the expense forgiveness period from eight weeks to 24 weeks
•   Reducing the payroll ratio requirement to 60 percent
•   Increasing the loan repayment period from two to five years on new loans
•   Allowing payroll tax deferment for PPP recipients
•   Extending the June 30 rehiring deadline

Following is a summary of the legislation’s main points compiled by the AICPA: 
• Current PPP borrowers can choose to extend the eight-week period to 24 weeks, or they can keep the original eight-week period. New PPP borrowers will have a 24-week covered period, but the covered period can’t extend beyond Dec. 31, 2020. This flexibility is designed to make it easier for more borrowers to reach full, or almost full, forgiveness.
• Under the language in the House bill, the payroll expenditure requirement drops to 60% from 75% but is now a cliff, meaning that borrowers must spend at least 60% on payroll or none of the loan will be forgiven. Currently, a borrower is required to reduce the amount eligible for forgiveness if less than 75% of eligible funds are used for payroll costs, but forgiveness isn’t eliminated if the 75% threshold isn’t met.  Rep. Chip Roy (Texas), who co-sponsored the bill in the House, said in a House speech that the bill intended the sliding scale to remain in effect at 60%. Senators Marco Rubio and Susan Collins indicated that technical tweaks could be made to the bill to restore the sliding scale.
• Borrowers can use the 24-week period to restore their workforce levels and wages to the pre-pandemic levels required for full forgiveness. This must be done by Dec. 31, a change from the previous deadline of June 30.
• The legislation includes two new exceptions allowing borrowers to achieve full PPP loan forgiveness even if they don’t fully restore their workforce. Previous guidance already allowed borrowers to exclude from those calculations employees who turned down good faith offers to be rehired at the same hours and wages as before the pandemic. The new bill allows borrowers to adjust because they could not find qualified employees or were unable to restore business operations to Feb. 15, 2020, levels due to COVID-19 related operating restrictions.
• New borrowers now have five years to repay the loan instead of two. Existing PPP loans can be extended up to 5 years if the lender and borrower agree. The interest rate remains at 1%.
• The bill allows businesses that took a PPP loan to also delay payment of their payroll taxes, which was prohibited under the CARES Act.

Small business owners are strongly encouraged to have an accountant assist them in the calculations and documentation for loan forgiveness.

Any small business owner who has not applied for PPP loan through a bank or fintech is encouraged to investigate more and learn if they qualify. The Dallas Metropolitan SBDC is available for assistance and to discuss these issues with you.

Read more:

https://finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/u-senate-passes-bill-lengthening-000216719.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2020/05/31/house-passes-ppp-loan-forgiveness-bill-treasury-issues-harsh-forgiveness-regulations/#7963e52648cb

https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2020/jun/ppp-loan-forgiveness-changes-coming.html

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/ppp-flexibility-act-2020-passes-congress-covered-period-increased-to-24-weeks-among

SBA to Make Economic Injury Disaster Loans Available to U.S. Agricultural Businesses Impacted by COVID-19 Pandemic

Release Date:  Monday, May 4, 2020 Release Number:  20-38 Contact:  Press_Office@sba.gov, (202) 205-7036

WASHINGTON – U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Jovita Carranza announced today that agricultural businesses are now eligible for SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and EIDL Advance programs. SBA’s EIDL portal will reopen today as a result of funding authorized by Congress through the Paycheck Protection Program and Healthcare Enhancement Act. The legislation, signed into law by the President one week ago, provided additional funding for farmers and ranchers and certain other agricultural businesses affected by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“For more than 30 years, SBA has been prohibited by law from providing disaster assistance to agricultural businesses; however, as a result of the unprecedented legislation enacted by President Trump, American farmers, ranchers and other agricultural businesses will now have access to emergency working capital,” said Administrator Carranza. “These low-interest, long-term loans will help keep agricultural businesses viable while bringing stability to the nation’s vitally important food supply chains.”

Agricultural businesses include businesses engaged in the legal production of food and fiber, ranching, and raising of livestock, aquaculture, and all other farming and agricultural related industries (as defined by section 18(b) of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 647(b)). Eligible agricultural businesses must have 500 or fewer employees.

The SBA will begin accepting new EIDL applications on a limited basis only, in order to provide unprecedented relief to U.S. agricultural businesses. For agricultural businesses that submitted an EIDL loan application through the streamlined application portal prior to the legislative change, SBA will move forward and process these applications without the need for re-applying. All other EIDL loan applications that were submitted before the portal stopped accepting new applications on April 15 will be processed on a first-in, first-out basis.

For more information, please visit: www.sba.gov/Disaster.

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About the U.S. Small Business Administration
The U.S. Small Business Administration makes the American dream of business ownership a reality. As the only go-to resource and voice for small businesses backed by the strength of the federal government, the SBA empowers entrepreneurs and small business owners with the resources and support they need to start, grow or expand their businesses, or recover from a declared disaster. It delivers services through an extensive network of SBA field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations. To learn more, visit www.sba.gov.­

https://www.sba.gov/about-sba/sba-newsroom/press-releases-media-advisories/sba-make-economic-injury-disaster-loans-available-us-agricultural-businesses-impacted-covid-19?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Clients have applied and are now being approved for and receiving PPP Loan funds. Now what? There are a lot of details to pay attention to and rules to follow. This is an interesting article on forbes.com written by Tony Nitti / Senior Contributor, titled Ten Things We Need To Know About Paycheck Protection Program Loan Forgiveness.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2020/04/15/ten-things-we-need-to-know-about-paycheck-protection-program-loan-forgiveness/#584577ed3291

The ten issues it addresses are:

#1: What does it mean when it says “costs incurred and payments made” within the 8-week covered period will be forgiven?

#2. How do the two “covered periods” interact?

#3. Are payments made with forgiven funds deductible?

#4. Can a business pay interest on non-mortgage debt during the covered period and have it forgiven?

#5. Can self-employed taxpayers have mortgage interest/rent/utilities forgiven, or can’t they?

#6:  What are we doing about federal income tax withholding and payroll taxes?

#7: Can a business have self-rental payments forgiven?

#8: Can someone explain how we determine the required reduction in forgiveness amount if a business cuts employees?

#9: How does the reduction in forgiveness caused by salary reduction work?

#10: Who makes the call?