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.
Andrew Housser is an accomplished entrepreneur and investor, and the co-founder and co-CEO of digital personal finance company Achieve. Previously, Housser worked in the financial services industry, doing private equity investing with Littlejohn & Co., and working in investment banking at Salomon Smith Barney. He has been named to the Silicon Valley 40 under 40 list and is a past winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Northern California.
Outside of Achieve, Housser is a part-time angel investor and has served on the board of directors of several startup companies and two independent schools. Andrew received his MBA from Stanford Business School, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar and received a BA summa cum laude from Dartmouth College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Samuel Capuano, principal at The Bonadio Group, is responsible for providing internal audit and compliance services to financial institution clients. He has been a bank auditor for 30 years.
Mike Markland is the founder and CEO of ATMA.
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.”