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Updates regarding this site

PLEASE Ask Congress To Extend Key Tax Filing Dates

As I outlined in a recent post, the IRS extended the individual tax date for filing, but not business and estimated tax dates, which are the ones that small business owners and their tax preparers truly need.

We are asking everyone to please take a moment to contact their Representatives and Senators in Congress to request these types of taxes be included in the recent extension announced by the IRS.

You can share this great article from Money Magazine with them, outlining the issues, or just ask them to google “AICPA tax deadline small business” — there are a ton of great articles that explain why the need for them to act is so great.

From the American Institute of CPAs:

For reference, here’s a copy of my personal message to them — I called and emailed both of my senators as well as my representative.

We in the small business accounting and tax world would immensely appreciate your taking a few moments of your time to help us and our small business clients out — it has been a tax season like no other and we need your assistance to make it to the other side.


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

Tax Day Extended to 5/17… Kinda. Small Businesses Need Your Help!

As I’m sure you’ve heard, it’s official — though it has a lot less meaning and impact than expected. The IRS has moved the individual income tax filing and payment date from the “usual” April 15 to my birthday: May 17, 2021.

But they did not include estimated tax payments or business returns in this extension. Please give me a real birthday present and contact Congress to request this essential small business relief.

IRS Commissioner Rettig neglected to do a few key things that were necessary to assist small business owners and their CPAs:

– Same as last year, the new date was announced after the March 15 deadline for filing S-Corp and Partnership tax returns; due to a long list of new guidance and still-awaited guidance, this forced us to do extra work to put approximately 75% of our clients in this category on extension.
– The extension does not apply to C-Corps and Co-ops, whose returns are still due on the original date of April 15th. This category represents approximately 15% of our struggling small business clients.
– The May 17th extension is only for 2020 tax year filings and, quite problematically, does not apply to first-quarter 2021 estimated taxes due on April 15th, which almost all of our clients are required to pay.

Furthermore, when recently questioned about whether or not there was a way the IRS could help small business owners by coordinating the first-quarter payment with the new deadline, Rettig flatly refused: “no”. Pressed regarding the consequences that not extending this due date would have on small business owners, Rettig said that they had to draw a line somewhere to keep wealthy taxpayers from “gaming the system” (for one month, really?); that small business owners challenged by this could just call the IRS if they have a problem (because that’s been going so well this season?); and tried to point out that the penalties aren’t really that high (so suck it up, and never mind that the state penalties are out of control?).

I cannot begin to express the frustration and disappointment with this decision, and I am not alone.

“The announcement is far too selective in who is receiving relief,” Barry Melancon, AICPA’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “Failure to include estimated payments nullifies any benefit of a postponement since the tax return work has to be done to calculate estimated payments.”

“While this is welcome news for some taxpayers, there are a number of concerns that this limited extension does not address,” writes Frank Washelesky of ORBA. “The IRS extension does not extend the time for paying first quarter estimated income taxes for the 2021 tax year. It is difficult for taxpayers to determine the amount of the estimated tax required without, at least, a reasonable estimate of their 2020 tax situation. Without an extension of these payments, the filing extension to May 17, 2021 has minimal value for many taxpayers.”

Here’s what the problem is: most small business owners need to pay quarterly estimated taxes to the IRS based on either:
1) 100% of the prior-year’s tax liability; or,
2) 90% of the current-year’s tax liability (which we can’t know yet, so we extrapolate based on the actual profit from the quarter).

Based on a somewhat complex set of rules (which are often different at the state level), small business owners and their tax advisers calculate the actual amount to submit. But they generally need to know both these amounts — which is impossible if their tax return for 2020 hasn’t been filed yet. See why this mismatch in dates is a problem?

And to spice things up even further, not all states are going along with the IRS rules. Taxpayers and their advisers need to check with each agency separately (here’s a good running list at-a-glance). Illinois recently decided to comply with the IRS dates, meaning that the quarterly estimated tax problem exists with our Department of Revenue as well.

“This selective decision by the IRS unfortunately creates more bureaucracy and confusion and is out of sync with real world stresses that taxpayers, tax practitioners and small businesses are dealing with,” said Melancon.

How can you help?

You can call or email your politicians and ask them to include estimated and corporate taxes in the new deadline.

We in the accounting profession would be greatly appreciative if you could contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators and ask them to move ALL tax return and payment due dates, including estimated tax payments and corporate taxes.

I know it’s a pain, but AICPA insists that this type of grassroots work really does have an impact… and if you care about the physical and mental health of your tax preparer, and about the anxiety level and financial well-being of millions of small business owners, you’ll hopefully take a moment to make our request go a bit further.

Thank you!


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

The Dancing Accountant In The Journal Of Accountancy

I am excited to highlight yet another feature in the AICPA’s Journal of Accountancy. Their “CPA Insider” has been one of my habitual reads and go-to publications for years, and so to be included in their article, “The Year Ahead: CPAs share their ambitions and goals” is a special honor. Many thanks to author Kelly Hinchcliffe for reaching out again after our last piece together, about protecting small business clients from predatory loans.

As with all interviews, one shares more information than can be printed, so I always enjoy posting the full interview here on my blog.

What are your goals for 2021 in the following areas for yourself and/or your business?

  • Career goals: What would you like to accomplish professionally in 2021, and why?

It has been a long-standing goal to start putting my company’s internal systems on the same level of importance as client work… to prioritize them in the spirit of “Profit First” (which I’m also terrible at doing, despite being an accountant). Everyone else’s needs always seem more pressing than our own company’s: cybersecurity, engagement letters, contracts, operating agreements, workflows/ procedures/ standardization, and billing. I would love to “catch up” and focus on my own company’s health with as much passion and investment as I show my clients’ companies. To that end, I am hoping to slow down client acquisition growth (we always have a waiting list, so this is challenging), develop staff internally, and hire an administrator to help keep me on-track and focused on these projects.

  • Technology skills: What technology skills will be most important for your job in 2021? Is there anything new you’d like to learn?

I have prided myself on being at the forefront of accounting technology for a long time, compared to many CPAs — most colleagues that I know either focus on the tax side or the bookkeeping side, whereas we make it our goal to straddle both worlds and provide value-added accounting services in doing so. I think we pull that off quite well where our clients are concerned — we have a rich tech stack and solid implementation resources for automating accounting, bookkeeping, point of sale, payroll, retirement and similar systems. However, internally, our own systems are very disjointed. Because of the challenges of staff growth and migrating away from legacy software, we do not follow the same advice we give clients — to make sure all the apps in our tech stack “talk to each other”. Therefore, technology-wise, my goals align with the career goals I mentioned earlier: focus on internal needs and improving workflows to make us more efficient. This includes migrating time-tracking & billing software, using Zapier to automate client onboarding and database population, and switching file upload software to automatically connect with our cloud file servers.

  • Professional development: What professional development goals do you have for 2021, and what learning opportunities are most helpful to you?

Continuing education is never-ending in our firm! It seems my staff and I are always attending one webinar or another — on such diverse topics as PPP (my favorites being the AICPA Town Halls and Alan Gassman‘s periodic free sessions); ERC and tax law changes (Tom Gorczynski and Tony Nitti are favorites); Intuit’s QuickBooks Online In The Know updates; and app demos (I recommend Hector Garcia, Heather Satterley, and Cathy Iconis‘s regular offerings)… as well as the usual suspects, such as tax updates (I never miss the NATP Annual Conference, and usually attend Tax Speaker‘s year-end class), and co-operative topics (a niche market for my firm, I like the NSAC webinars as well as the annual CPG Conference). CPA Academy also offers highly-specific free or low-cost webinars that I find quite valuable. I provide a good budget for both time and course costs to my staff because I want them all to be as excited about learning new things as I am. We each have different interests and areas of expertise.

  • Business opportunities: What are your business goals for 2021, and why?

The pandemic made me realize how much of a dedicated following my award-winning blog has… it truly hadn’t hit home until I realized I was one of the only reliable sources nationally for the constantly-changing Paycheck Protection Program. I started offering free zoom Q&A sessions to my clients and colleagues every week, and some of these I shared on the blog. The feedback has been incredible. It reminded me how much I love teaching, and gave me renewed interest in offering low-cost educational materials and sessions specific to small business owners (and the bookkeepers and accountants who assist them). I’ll be exploring this direction more in the coming year.

  • Anything else: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

My staff and I have operated a remote company for years, but I still met with clients in-person most of the time. This limited the personal goal I had of becoming a “digital nomad” and traveling while working (my husband’s software development work is 100% remote). The pandemic changed all that — we were in Yucatán, Mexico on a tax-season work retreat when Covid-19 hit, and we simply never went back home to Chicago. (We intend to do so once a vaccine is widely-available.) My clients had the opportunity to discover that I am every-bit as involved in my hyper-local community from afar as I was at home, and the silver lining is that I am now considering what my new office will look like… will it be half-a-year in Chicago and the other half elsewhere? Will we sell our home and live on a boat? What about every tax season being somewhere sunny? The options are endless and give me some extra energy and anticipation while I trudge through the challenging task of keeping my small business clients afloat to see a brighter future.


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

Tips To Maximize 2020 Employee Retention Credit (ERC) & PPP Interaction

I recently wrote about reasons to hold off on Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) forgiveness applications for the time being. Among them is the complex interaction between PPP and the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), which previously was not permitted as an option for financial relief for those that had received PPP funding.

Because ERC is now available for small businesses who have accepted PPP funds — but not for the same payroll dollars (no double-dipping) — there are some pretty complicated calculations that, if done right, could generate a great deal of financial relief to a lot of independent business-owners in need.

The IRS came out with guidance on March 1. The Journal of Accountancy summarizes:

The notice explains (1) who are eligible employers; (2) what constitutes full or partial suspension of trade or business operations; (3) what is a significant decline in gross receipts; (4) what is the maximum amount of an eligible employer’s employee retention credit; (5) qualified wages; (6) how an eligible employer claims the employee retention credit; and (7) how an eligible employer substantiates the claim for the credit.

Summary of the 2020 Employee Retention Credit

As a reminder, the 2020 ERC is a payroll tax credit available to business owners whose operations have been fully or partially suspended by government order, or who have seen a drop in income of more than 50% compared to the same quarter in the previous year. (Note: in the new IRS guidance it also states that if “the business’s suppliers are unable to make deliveries of critical goods or materials due to a governmental order”, your business may be eligible for ERC — even though there was no governmental order in your area.)

The credit comprises 50% of up to $10,000 in wages to each employee. The credit cannot be taken on wages that were paid for by PPP funds — but as long as there is no double-dipping, PPP recipients can claim other wages for the purpose of ERC.

The ERC is claimed as a reduction of payroll taxes on quarterly Form 941 (or a prepaid refund on Form 7200). The IRS updated the form on July 1, and a handy breakdown of the new lines can be found here. There are different rules for eligible businesses to be able to claim the 2021 ERC moving forward — a topic for another day — but this post concerns the opportunity to “scoop up” payroll dollars from 2020 that would have been eligible for ERC had it not been for the PPP Loan. These can be claimed by filing an amended Form 941 for each relevant quarter.

Keep in mind that the ERC is complex, and this blog post will not walk you through the specifics — I’ve included a list of some of my favorite resources below. The goal here is to share the steps in our firm’s approach toward these calculations for our clients.

So let’s start with a couple of things to be aware of before we go through the steps that my firm plans to walk through come May/June.

  1. First, the ERC is not generally as valuable as the PPP. It is a payroll tax credit, rather than actual cash funding (though you can file for an advance on it).
  2. And the ERC did not get the benefit of having Congress declare its related expenses deductible, like the special treatment that PPP costs received. So you will lose all the deductions for the payroll tax dollars on which you receive the credit. Deductions aren’t worth as much as credits, so you still come out ahead. But if you’re choosing PPP or ERC for a given payroll dollar, you want to pick the PPP first — up to the minimum 60% requirement for that loan to be forgiven.
  3. However, once you’ve reached that 60% requirement, if you can use non-payroll costs for the remaining 40%, then you “free up” the rest of the payroll dollars to be used for ERC. So you’ll want to work on PPP1 forgiveness applications at the same time as 2020 ERC calculations — they are related to each other, and changing one will potentially affect the other.
  4. But what does this mean for companies filing income tax returns for 2020? Businesses that later decide to retroactively claim the ERC will need to file amended income tax returns — or preferably, put their income tax returns on extension until they have claimed the ERC for 2020. We had previously thought that cash-basis filers could potentially claim the income for the credit and the associated reduction in payroll costs on the 2021 income tax return, but that was ruled out with the most recent IRS guidance.

Steps to Evaluate Payroll for PPP vs ERC

The hope is that in most cases you’ll be able to do Steps One and Two and skip the rest. But just in case, Steps Three and Four will take you the rest of the way there.

Step One
When figuring out how to combine ERC and PPP, literally make a calendar for each client and work from that.

a) Determine dates for which you qualify for ERC, based on either:
– the full or partial shut-down period, or
– a gross receipts decline of 50% over the same quarter in 2019
(the latter qualifies you from the beginning of that quarter to the end of the quarter where receipts go back up to 80%)

Keep in mind that both scenarios may apply, but for different periods — for example, the business was shut down on 3/18/20, and then later fully reopened… and then the 50% revenue drop started in the following quarter.

Note: you may want to find out the exact dates that your client’s city/county/state decreed full-capacity indoor dining was illegal — for those dates, restaurants qualify for ERC based on “full/partial shut-down” rules. If your client is a gym, bar, or other type of non-essential business that had hours limited, find out the exact full-or-partial shut-down dates decreed for that industry in that specific area.

b) Determine PPP covered period. For most folks, this will be the 24 weeks starting on the date of loan fund disbursement.

c) Determine the “bookend” periods — the time both before and after the PPP covered period; for the timeframe when the client qualified for ERC but was not in the PPP realm.

Step Two
You may be able to skip the rest of the steps by eyeballing whether you’re able to claim the entire 2020 ERC of $5k per employee (on the first 10k paid to each) all in one quarter — for most businesses this would usually be the final quarter of the year. Then, not only will you not have to worry about overlapping PPP and ERC payroll dollars, but you also will be able to claim this through most payroll companies and not have to manually amend the 4Q 2020 Form 941. Double-bonus!

If not, then see if you can get the full $5k per employee ERC (again, on the first 10k paid to each) using only the periods before and after the PPP1 covered period. You at least eliminate the need to juggle the PPP payroll dollars along with the ERC payroll dollars during the covered period.

Step Three
If that’s not an option — if you can’t get to the full 10k within the bookend periods — then:

Before you work on PPP1 forgiveness, subtract whatever the 2020 unallocated ERC balance is after Step 2 (not to exceed 10k of wages per employee) from the payroll amounts during the PPP covered period — before putting numbers in the forgiveness application, just to make sure you can still get full forgiveness at this rate. This is just a “gut check” to see if you can eliminate the need to run the actual ERC calculations for the PPP covered period.

If so, then go ahead and take ERC on the difference, even if you haven’t figured out the specifics of your PPP1 forgiveness yet.

Step 4
If you can’t get full forgiveness on PPP1 at this rate, then go ahead and fill out the PPP1 application in full, using only 60% of the PPP funds to allocate payroll.

Then see how many payroll dollars are “left over” to be used for ERC.

And remember that you can use payroll from employees who made over $100k annually for ERC during the PPP period — because those dollars are not eligible for PPP (due to rules and limitations specific to that program), but they are eligible for ERC.

You can also count — for ERC purposes — dollars that were above 60% of the PPP loan, and therefore are not needed for forgiveness (presuming the business has sufficient eligible costs to make up the 40% “non-payroll” portion of PPP forgiveness).

Think of it this way: you are effectively reducing the ERC subtraction amount per-employee from PPP forgiveness until you get to full PPP forgiveness… and taking 2020 ERC on the balance (since as I mentioned before, the PPP payroll dollars are more tax-advantaged than the ERC dollars).

Does this four-step process sound easy? No! It’s not. It may not in fact be worth it for most small business clients to pay a professional to scoop up the remaining piddly amounts in the PPP covered period — in which case, consider just using Steps One and Two: the amounts in the bookend periods, or even better, just the amount from the final quarter (because that way they don’t have to pay you to manually prepare a 4Q Form 941, either).

But reviewing this approach before going in and working on all the client ERC and PPP calculations should help a great deal in identifying where the bulk of the payroll dollars are that will qualify for the ERC program, and will allow you to make intelligent decisions about which periods to mine for this type of financial relief for your small business clients.

Resources

For a wonderful in-depth explanation of the Employee Retention Tax Credit, please see Tony Nitti’s two-part Forbes article:
– Breaking Down Changes To The Employee Retention Tax Credit In The New Covid Relief Bill, Part 1
– Breaking Down The Changes To The Employee Retention Credit In The New COVID Relief Bill, Part 2
– Part 2 also links to an earlier article of his that goes through the details of calculating the ERC according to the 2020 rules.

KBKG is offering a free one-hour webinar on March 17:
Employee Retention Tax Credits: Qualifications, Benefits & Refunds (kbkg.com)
–This is the same firm that offers the free 2021 ERC estimator calculator.

The three paid courses I’ve taken so far that were the most valuable were:
Tom Gorczynski‘s Employee Retention Credit Update, which included an Excel Calculation Template.
AICPA – The NEW Employee Retention Credit: More for Eligible Employers
NATP (natptax.com) – Calculating the Earned Income Credit


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

Why You Should Still Hold Off on PPP1 Forgiveness Applications

Many clients and colleagues have reached out to me over the past two months to ask whether they should apply for PPP1 forgiveness yet, and my answer (and that of the AICPA) is still “not quite yet”. But rather than just pushing off the question of “but when” into the future, I wanted to publicly share our company’s strategy and timeline for handling these applications.

The deadline to apply for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) forgiveness is 10 months after the end of the covered period — which for most folks for the first round was 24-weeks — so that wouldn’t be until sometime in July 2021 for the earliest borrowers. (It’s not really a deadline, but it’s the date on which the lender will start requiring loan payments, so I think of it as one.)

We’re planning to dedicate May & June 2021 to working through all our existing clients’ PPP forgiveness applications. There are many clarifications we’re still waiting for (they keep dribbling out of Congress, IRS, and the SBA bit by bit, with occasional leaps), and the interaction between the PPP and other types of financial relief is complex.

In particular, the rules surrounding the 2020 Employee Retention Credit — which until recently was not an option for PPP borrowers — are vague and complex, even with the recent IRS Notice and FAQ. Furthermore, most payroll companies have not figured out how to collect the information and prepare the 4th-quarter Form 941 forms for partial quarters, and we may end up having to file some ERC requests manually. (Don’t get me started on this one.)

An example of how the changing rules affect applications: the EIDL advance grant was previously supposed to be subtracted from PPP forgiveness; but by asking our clients to wait on their forgiveness applications, they were able to take advantage of a December 2020 change that removes this requirement, saving them many thousands of dollars. (Though thankfully, it sounds like SBA will eventually refund those amounts to businesses who applied before this new rule went into effect.)

As if these reasons weren’t enough, in a recent on-demand AICPA Town Hall, they mentioned that:
– Most lenders are not actively taking forgiveness applications because their teams are focused on administering PPP2.
– SBA is working very slowly on forgiveness process because they are also focused on PPP2.
– The new simplified form for $150k and under will not be worked into the SBA system until sometime in March.

Between the constantly-changing rules for PPP and the guidance and calculations needed for ERC, we’re still following the recommendation of the AICPA and asking folks to hold off on PPP1 forgiveness applications, until tax season is behind us all and the IRS can focus on the remaining questions, allowing us to be methodical and consistent in our approach.

There’s no reason to be nervous about holding off on forgiveness — of the one-third of PPP loans that have been submitted for forgiveness, fully 99% of the loan dollars have been forgiven. The very small amount that have not are small loans at only 1% interest. Furthermore, by waiting you are giving your business the best chance at maximizing other types of financial relief, especially as the new Biden-Harris administration is in the process of changing rules to make them more attainable for a larger number of the smallest businesses out there, as well as Congress creating new funding opportunities.

(For tips on planning for the potential Employee Retention Credit, see my next blog post.)


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

Cómo Aplicar Un Préstamo Del Programa de Protección de Cheques de Pago (PPP) – GRATIS – En Español

Explico el proceso para solicitar un préstamo del Programa de Protección de Cheques de Pago.

The webinar I gave last week on how to apply for a PPP loan was translated into Spanish by the talented Elsa Prado — just click the image above to hear the whole thing in Spanish.

She was also kind enough to invite me as a guest on her Spanish-language show Alas de Amor on Radio Dimension Latina FM last Saturday — and I managed to pull off most of it without resorting to English, though she was kind enough to expertly translate when I did. (Our session is from about 3:30-35:30 -ish.)

Alas de Amor on Radio Dimension Latina FM — https://fb.watch/3IztQD22aS/

Algunos aspectos destacados:

Estoy muy ansioso por difundir este importante programa de ayuda financiera para empresas pequeñas, se llama PPP. El Programa de Protección de Cheques de Pago (PPP) de la SBA se abrió para una otra ronda de solicitudes, hasta las 31 de marzo. Este programa proporciona a las pequeñas empresas fondos para costos de nómina, alquiler, servicios públicos y otras categorías nuevas de gastos adicionales.

Necesitas solicitar un préstamo PPP a través de un banco u otra institución financiera, no directamente a través de la SBA. Además, no tienes que solicitar el préstamo de tu banco principal. Hay muchos diferentes bancos, prestamistas y otras instituciones financieras que pueden ayudarle a presentar la solicitud.

En la primera ronda de préstamos PPP en abril de 2020, había muchos problemas con las aplicaciones. No había suficiente información sobre cómo presentar la solicitud y a veces había información contradictoria. Esto resultó en bastantes problemas para los negocios que trataron de solicitar préstamos PPP1.

Después de los desafíos de abril, la SBA publicó más información sobre cómo presentar una solicitud y el congreso presentó nueva legislación retroactiva que resolvió muchos de los problemas originales.

Las reglas ahora son más claras y beneficiosas para las pequeñas empresas.

La nueva ronda de préstamos PPP está abierta y la fecha límite para las solicitudes es el 31 de marzo. ¡Todavía hay tiempo para presentar su solicitud – incluso para la primera ronda de préstamos PPP!


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

How To Apply For The Paycheck Protection Program – FREE Step-By-Step Webinar With Slides & Links

This past Wednesday, February 17th 2021, I was honored once again to participate in State Representative Will Guzzardi’s FREE Facebook Live series designed to help his constituents — and anyone else who wants to tune in — to learn about financial relief during Covid-19.

We did an entire hour-long session on how to determine eligibility and apply for the current round of the Paycheck Protection Program, which is designed to be open through March 31, 2021 or until funds run out.

The full-length webinar is FREE, as are the slides, resources and links to walk you through the application process. Additionally, a PDF version of the slides is available for download here:

We covered the following topics:
1) Paycheck Protection Program Summary
2) Current Program Overview
3) Eligibility
4) How To Apply
5) Where To Apply
6) Forgiveness Basics
7) Resources & Questions

Please share far and wide to help small business owners learn about the current status of the Paycheck Protection Program and how they can determine eligibility and apply for a non-taxable forgivable loan to help their companies stay afloat during these challenging times.


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

The Dancing Accountant Presents: FREE PPP Webinar 2/17/21 6 PM Central

I am proud to be participating in State Representative Will Guzzardi’s FREE Facebook Live series designed to help his constituents — and anyone else who wants to tune in — to learn about financial relief during Covid-19.

We’ll be doing a session on how to determine eligibility and apply for the current round of the Paycheck Protection Program, which is designed to be open through March 31, 2021 or until funds run out.

I’ll cover the following topics:
1) Paycheck Protection Program Summary
2) Current Program Overview
3) Eligibility
4) How To Apply
5) Where To Apply
6) Forgiveness Basics
7) Resources & Questions

Slides will be available through Rep. Guzzardi’s office by request, and I will link to a recording here on my blog.

As an exciting bonus, the webinar will be translated into Spanish, by the talented Elsa Prado. She was kind enough to invite me as a guest on her Spanish-language show Alas de Amor this past Saturday — and I managed to pull off about 85% of it without resorting to English, though she was kind enough to expertly translate when I did.

In either language, please join us to learn about the current status of the Paycheck Protection Program and how you can determine eligibility and apply for a non-taxable forgivable loan to help your business stay afloat during these challenging times.


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

PPP2 Is Almost Here — Be Ready Or Risk Missing Out

For the past few weeks, we’ve been hearing in the news that Congress is coming closer to an agreement on another round of stimulus. It will be a more narrowly-targeted package than prior relief, but it will contain (at least the draft does) funding for the most important items: vaccine distribution; unemployment extension & federal supplement; stimulus checks; emergency food, rent & loan assistance; PPP loan forgiveness simplification; and our main topic here: another chance at PPP funding.

At this week’s AICPA Town Hall (free recording here), Lisa Simpson and Mark Peterson walked us through what is included in the current round of proposed legislation, and what it would mean for the next PPP program (popularly dubbed “PPP2”). They have encouraged us to share their slides and other resources.

Some of the notable elements are that 501(c)(6) organizations — including Chambers of Commerce — will be eligible for PPP this time, providing their lobbying efforts don’t exceed a certain threshold (10% as of now but that could change); and hospitality-industry chains will yet again be allowed to each apply for PPP as if they were independent hotels and restaurants (surprising after the negative press from the first round, but they have a loud voice in politics). Thankfully, the IRS and Congressional representatives are working together to include a provision for expenses paid for with PPP funds to be deductible — the current biggest obstacle for small businesses who receive(d) aid.

In addition, Lisa went through what we know so far about how the new PPP program will be structured and what eligibility requirements might look like. Keep in mind that this is all in draft at this point.

The idea is that if the gross revenues for any quarter in 2020 are down 30% or more over the same quarter in 2019, the business would be eligible for a second application for PPP funds, as long as they have 300 or fewer employees (per location, if in the hospitality industry). EIDL and PPP funds would not be included in this calculation, but no word yet on whether other aid, such as state, local or industry grants, would.

You do not have to apply for forgiveness for PPP1 before applying for PPP2 — in fact, we are still recommending that you hold off on your forgiveness application until Congress passes forgiveness simplification and tax deductibility of related expenses.

Nothing has been finalized yet and we don’t know all the details. But the AICPA has been meeting with politicians on both sides of the aisle and says that something is certainly going to be passed — it’s just a question of when, not if — and what the exact details will be.

It’s likely we’ll have news soon, and as such, it’s important that small business owners begin anticipating their next decision here, since time will likely be a factor — there is less capital in PPP2 than there was in the first round (which was exhausted in 6 days), so being prepared is key.

With that in mind — tips to consider if you might want to pursue additional PPP funding:

1) Have your books up-to-date and reconciled so you and your accountant can begin preparing your application the second the legislation drops.
2) There will be an eligibility hurdle for second-time PPP applicants. You will need to prove a 30% (as of now) drop in revenue — not profit, but gross revenue — in any quarter of 2020 compared to the same quarter in 2019. (If you didn’t get PPP funds in the first round and you want to this time, this rule does not apply.) The first round of PPP/EIDL does not count toward income for this purpose. No word yet on whether other grants may. Otherwise the calculations will be the same as in the first round.
3) I’m asking my interested clients to reach out to me to get their file set up in my CPA Business Funding Portal now, before legislation is passed, so we can just hit “submit” when the program opens, to try to get them in the first tranche of applicants.

(Note to other CPAs and accounting colleagues: this time around I am using AICPA-developed PPP application and forgiveness software, CPALoanPortal.com, so as to make the process for getting client funding less haphazard, more reliable, and more efficient. It’s free at the basic level, which allows you to apply for funding and forgiveness all in one portal, with a client dashboard. I’ve decided to pay to upgrade so I can use the payroll company reporting and AICPA FTE-calculator integrations. Their partner, Biz2Credit, was directly approved by SBA to lend money to small businesses; it’s not a third-party (like so many of the services we used first-time around who brokered loans as a middle-man). Looking forward to same-day PPP2 loan approvals, and disbursements within days. No I am not paid a cent to say any of this.)

Sincerely hoping the process goes more smoothly this time than it did in April!


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SBA Releases Long-Awaited PPP Forgiveness FAQ

PPP Forgiveness FAQ released only five days before SBA begins accepting lender applications

I was presuming (in this blog post) that the SBA set an initial date for accepting PPP forgiveness applications of August 10th because surely Congress would have something ironed out before they go on recess, and that these expected legislative changes to the program were the same reason for delaying release of their FAQ (yes, the one they have been promising for the past two months).

Surprise! The SBA FAQ was released late yesterday — I’ll be attending the AICPA Town Hall tomorrow and will post an update afterwards (maybe Friday), but in the meantime, here are the best articles I’ve found on the topic so far.

Journal of Accountancy – New FAQs address PPP loan forgiveness issues
By Jeff Drew

Forbes – SBA Makes Further Changes To PPP Rules In August 4th FAQs
By Alan Gassman

ABA Banking Journal – SBA Releases New PPP Forgiveness FAQs, Lending Data


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.