June 5, 2020
President Trump signed the
Paycheck Protection Flexibility Act (ACT)
into law today. This legislation gives small business owners who took out Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans more flexibility in how they spend the loans.
The PPP was established in late March to help small businesses and nonprofits hurt by the coronavirus crisis. It has received $670 billion in funding through March’s $2.2 trillion CARES Act and April’s $484 billion relief package. There have been $510 billion in PPP loans approved as of Saturday, according to Small Business Administration figures.
In case you missed it yesterday, the 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 cannot extend beyond December 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 is not eliminated if the 75% threshold is not 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 December 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 do not 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 February 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.
Feel free to contact any member of our team at (610) 828-1900 (PA) or (732) 341-3893 (NJ) with questions. You can contract Rich Higgins, CPA, managing principal - New Jersey Office at
Richard.Higgins@MCC-CPAs.com
and me at
Marty.McCarthy@MCC-CPAs.com
. As always, we are happy to help.
Stay safe,
Marty McCarthy, CPA, CCIFP
Managing Partner
McCarthy & Company
Disclaimer: This alert is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Information contained in this communication is not intended or written to be used as tax advice, and cannot be used by the recipient to avoid penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code. We strongly advise you to seek professional assistance with respect to your specific issue(s).
