The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee said the Treasury Department “missed the mark” in new guidance that limits tax breaks for businesses that get their Paycheck Protection Program loans forgiven.
In a joint statement Thursday, Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley and Democrat Ron Wyden said the Treasury is depriving some small businesses of much-needed economic relief by forcing them to choose between getting their PPP loans forgiven or claiming write-offs on expenses they covered with the loan money. The IRS published guidance on the issue Wednesday.
“Regrettably, Treasury has now doubled down on its position in new guidance that increases the tax burden on small businesses by accelerating their tax liability, all at a time when many businesses continue to struggle and some are again beginning to close,” Grassley and Wyden said.
The congressional reaction to the guidance puts additional pressure on the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service to allow taxpayers to claim the expense deductions. Grassley and Wyden encouraged the IRS to reverse its position.
The lawmakers said they are working to include language in year-end legislation clarifying that taxpayers qualify for expense deductions even if their loans are forgiven. That could be included in government spending legislation that Congress must pass by Dec. 11 before federal funding runs out.
Chris Moran, a tax attorney for law firm Venable LLP, said, “the IRS guidance seems to be inconsistent with congressional intent” in the CARES Act, which created PPP loans for businesses struggling from the pandemic. The law stated that the forgiven loan won’t be taxed, but didn’t specify whether companies could still write off the expenses they covered with that money.
Samuel Tae is a principal at Ryan in the international tax group, specializing in global tax planning and structuring. He advises on both inbound and outbound tax matters and has extensive experience helping clients expand and optimize their global tax structures.
Dr. Robert Singer is senior professor of accounting and program coordinator in the Department of Accounting at the Robert W. Plaster College of Business and Entrepreneurship of Lindenwood University in Saint Charles, Missouri.
Josh Millet, CEO and co-founder of Criteria Corp., is a nationally recognized career and hiring expert with over 20 years of experience. He founded Criteria, a SaaS-based pre-employment and employee testing service that reduces turnover and improves hiring outcomes for employers and job candidates, and currently serves as its CEO. He has co-authored testing-related articles published in the Journal of Educational Computing and the American Psychological Society Observer. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar and a Mellon Fellow.
Excluding the forgiven loan from tax “is essentially meaningless if the expenses funded by the loan are nondeductible,” Moran said.
Still, many taxpayers aren’t expecting to get permission to claim the deductions, from the IRS or Congress, in the short term.
“I think most of them are, at least for now, resigned” to not getting the write-offs, Joe Kristan, a partner at the accounting firm Eide Bailly LLP in Des Moines, Iowa. “They’d certainly like to be allowed by Congress to step in and allow their deductions, but they’re not counting on it.”