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.
Nate Fleming works as an analyst at Forrester Research on the CIO team, covering software and services that enable the product development organization. He writes research for business-minded CIOs, CTOs, VPs of product development, and VPs of engineering who are seeking software and services support in an era of democratized product development that requires modern product development methodologies, cross-functional collaboration, as well as data-driven processes and product design. Nate has done extensive research, inquiry, and advisory covering the dynamics of the product lifecycle management (PLM) software market and the software product development services market, rounding out a coverage area that seeks to enable stakeholders bringing both physical and digital products to market.
Nate’s recent research at Forrester focuses on the democratization of the PLM software space, including a TechRadar™ that covers the range of technology functionalities that comprise the PLM software suite today and over the next five years. His software product development services coverage includes a Forrester Wave™ evaluation that outlines how services partners are helping customers implement customer-facing digital platforms that put software at the center of their brand. These two spaces coalesce in Nate’s research on the convergence of physical and digital product development and what that means for organizations looking to create or integrate with internet-of-things (IoT)-enabled products.
Previous Work Experience
Prior to becoming an analyst, Nate was a researcher and senior research associate on the application development and delivery (AD&D) and CIO teams.
Education
Nate holds a B.A. in history from Ithaca College.
Antonis Papatsaras is chief technology officer at SpringCM.
Bud Goswami is lead data scientist at Qubit.
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.”