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.
Alex Amezquita is CFO of Herbalife Nutrition, where he is responsible for corporate financial functions at the highest level, including the company’s financial reporting, accounting, tax and treasury functions. Prior to joining Herbalife Nutrition in 2017 as the senior vice president of finance, strategy and investor relations, Amezquita was senior vice president at Moelis and Company, a leading global investment bank, where he advised Fortune 500 companies on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, capital markets strategy and investor relations. Beginning in 2012, Amezquita worked extensively as a financial advisor to Herbalife Nutrition on key strategic and financial initiatives while at Moelis. Amezquita brings over 20 years of experience to Herbalife Nutrition from his finance and engineering background. He commenced his investment banking career on Wall Street advising Fortune 100 companies while at Merrill Lynch and Centerview Partners. He began his professional career in the aerospace & defense and technology sectors. During this time, Amezquita worked as both a lead design engineer and consultant to a broad spectrum of industry leaders ranging from Northrop Grumman to Cisco Systems. Amezquita holds an MBA in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master and Bachelor of Science degree in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Richard Herring is Jacob Safra Professor of International Banking and Professor of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business
Chris Koverman, vice president engineering and operations at CLARA Analytics, is a seasoned engineering executive with more than 20 years of product development and senior management experience in strategy, design and development of complex, scalable cloud-based products. Koverman is known for his ability to define product strategy and lead the technical execution required to achieve these goals. Chris received a Bachelor of Science, Biophysics, from University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor of Science, Computer Science, from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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.”