With only a few days to go before the end of a difficult year, some accountants and tax professionals are still hoping to finish up some perplexing issues for their clients before New Year’s Day.
One of those involves the Paycheck Protection Program, which has now been extended by the latest round of coronavirus relief legislation that President Trump signed into law on Sunday. Thanks to the new legislation, businesses will now be able to deduct business expenses for forgiven PPP loans.
“I do a lot with professional services firms — law firms, doctors’ offices — and everybody was really, really nervous about the Paycheck Protection loans, and whether the expenses were going to be deductible,” said Evan Morgan, director of tax services at Kaufman Rossin, a Top 100 Firm based in Miami. “I can tell you that this law uncategorically says that all expenses that were paid to meet the requirements of having the PPP loans forgiven are now deductible. That’s a very big deal, particularly because they weren’t sure how to plan for this. Professional services firms are a little bit different from normal entities in that they like to pay out all of their profits in the form of salaries prior to the end of the year.”
Besides matters pertaining to the PPP and other provisions of the CARES Act, accounting firms and their clients have needed to cope with issues left over from the Families First Coronavirus Response Act and what happens from providing paid leave to employees. Other issues may involve what to do with any payroll taxes that have been deferred under the coronavirus relief laws, as well as issues involving workers who have been furloughed or needed to reduce their hours.
Payroll provider Paychex has posted a 2020 year-end checklist for small businesses and their accountants. It advises, among other matters, for businesses to report all COVID-19 related tax credits with a Dec. 31, 2020, or earlier check date, as well as report Employee Retention Credits under the CARES Act. If a business overlooked reporting this information in previous quarters, it can still be reported in the fourth quarter. They will need to report any qualified wages for the Employee Retention Credit, in addition to qualified health plan expenses on wages reported for the Employee Retention Credit. If a business allowed its employees to defer their payroll taxes, the amounts are due for repayment by Dec. 31, 2021, and employees should be reminded of this.
Venkat is a senior manager in the Tax Technology and Transformation practice of Ernst & Young LLP (EY US), where she helps to define the digital strategy for the US firm's indirect tax platform and wider innovation agenda. Drawing on deep experience in AI, data engineering and cloud architecture, she leads cross-functional teams that translate complex tax requirements into agile, client-ready solutions, keeping EY US at the vanguard of tax modernization. Venkat works with tax executives to build enterprise-scale data lakes and embed agentic automation for real-time insight, reinforcing trusted delivery to businesses worldwide. She holds an MS in Information Management from Syracuse University and a B.Tech in Information Technology from Anna University.
Brent McIntosh is Citi's chief legal officer and corporate secretary. Brent leads Citi's Global Legal Affairs & Compliance organization, which includes the Legal Department, Independent Compliance Risk Management, Citi Security and Investigative Services and Citi's Regulatory Strategy and Policy function. He is a member of Citi's Executive Management Team.
Brent served as under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs from 2019 to 2021. From 2017 to 2019, Brent served as Treasury's general counsel. Prior to that, he was a partner in the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell.
Brent served in the White House from 2006 until 2009, first as associate counsel to the president and then as deputy assistant to the president and deputy staff secretary. Before that, he was a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.
Susana Ortega Valle is the VP of Product, where she leads the strategic vision for how small business owners engage with insurance. Throughout her two-decade career, she has built a reputation for developing high-performance teams that thrive on innovation and challenge conventional thinking.
Prior to joining Simply Business, Susana held digital product leadership roles at State Street and Santander Bank. Her approach to data-informed, AI-forward product strategy is backed by a robust academic foundation, including two MS degrees in Telecommunications Engineering and an MBA from MIT.
“Keep an eye on the reporting that’s required,” said Michael Savage, senior manager of ENS product operations at Paychex. “That takes on a new tone with COVID-19 and all of the legislation that passed to support small businesses and just support businesses in general. Businesses that took advantage of tax credits or paid sick leave wages, that will have an impact on reporting at this time of year, whether it’s the W-2 or 941. Being conscious of how those will impact reporting is really important.”
The quality of the data is also going to be critical this year for employee reporting, he added, including having the correct addresses, Social Security numbers and wage information. “They’re always important every year, but they definitely take on a new importance this year with COVID-19,” said Savage.
Paychex has created an online Coronavirus (COVID-19) Help Center, which includes a PPP Loan Forgiveness Estimator that accountants can use with their small-business clients to help estimate how much of their PPP loan may be forgiven.
Savage believes that small businesses are going to be relying on their accountants more than ever in the year ahead. “These are challenging times for small businesses,” he said. “They don’t necessarily have the expertise in-house to understand all of these complicated changes in the IRS Code, so they’re leveraging their trusted advisors — whether it’s their CPA, their payroll provider or an attorney — and really taking advantage of those relationships at this critical time. We’re seeing too that the do-it-yourselfers that have been prevalent in the small business space are really starting to shift more to leveraging providers that can really provide that expert counsel and advice in these situations.”
