The Internal Revenue Service released guidance this month to clarify the accounting treatment of payments under the Paycheck Protection Program and caused some consternation among some small businesses and tax experts. Many business owners who applied for loans under the PPP had the expectation the loans would be forgiven as long as their employees were paid for eight weeks, and the businesses would be able to write off their expenses as they traditionally have been able to do. The guidance puts this in doubt.
Notice 2020-32 clarifies that no deduction is allowed under the Internal Revenue Code for an expense that is otherwise deductible if the payment of the expense results in forgiveness of a covered loan under the CARES Act. The income associated with the forgiveness is excluded from gross income.
Gary Hallgren is president at Arity, where he leads the development and implementation of Arity's strategy and operations.
Gary has extensive experience creating next-generation telematics solutions and Software as a Service (SaaS) business models, managing mergers and acquisitions of public and venture-backed companies and leveraging data and analytics to create breakthrough business opportunities.
Prior to joining Allstate in 2015, Gary served as senior vice president of Corporate Strategy at Telogis, where he negotiated four strategic acquisitions related to fleet management, insurance telematics, routing and logistics and commercial navigation. Previously, he was CEO of Remote Dynamics Inc., where he led a turnaround and positioned the company as a leading telematics supplier to the construction industry.
Earlier in his career, Gary served as president and CEO of WirelessCar North America, Inc., which provides telematics services to the fleet management industry and vehicle manufacturers. He also served as vice president of operations at Volvo Technology of America, which provides telematics solutions for cars, trucks and marine products.
In its 22nd year, the program is celebrating both veteran honorees achieving new levels of success and first-time honorees representing a fresh wave of leadership
Mark Detrick co-founded Capio in 2008 and has been the chief executive officer since 2013, previously serving as the chief financial officer.
Under section 1106(b) of the CARES Act, a recipient of a covered loan can receive forgiveness of indebtedness on the loan in an amount equal to the sum of payments made for the following expenses — payroll costs, any payment of interest on any covered mortgage obligation, any payment on any covered rent obligation and any covered utility payment — during the eight-week “covered period” beginning on the covered loan’s origination date.
The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to provide economic relief for businesses in the wake of COVID-19. If the requirements of section 1106(b) are met, PPP proceeds are excluded from taxable income and the corresponding PPP expenses that are essentially being reimbursed are not tax deductible despite being classified as ordinary expenses under section 162 of the Tax Code. Thus, PPP funding is a tax-exempt “wash” — PPP expenses are not tax deductible to the extent of tax-exempt PPP income. Since “PPP wages” are not currently tax deductible under the program, it will be interesting to see how businesses will be directed to prepare W-2s for 2020.
The CARES Act provides for the payment of fees from PPP funds for the processing of applications on a sliding scale beginning at a rate of 5 percent for loans up to $350,000. These fees have generally become earmarked for banks and other financial institutions despite the hope that many accounting and legal professionals would be eligible for these fees for services rendered in assisting clients to generate the needed paperwork throughout the application process. Banks are receiving tens of millions of dollars in fees from PPP funds to process loans for which they are not at risk. Banks are also collecting transfer fees from PPP funds when these proceeds are wired into business accounts.
The CARES Act legislation stimulus checks were processed based upon Form 1040 filings — essentially bypassing an application process. Similarly, perhaps PPP funding would be more efficiently disbursed if allocations were based upon prior Form 941 filings instead of assessing the same payroll information through a costly application process. Another relief measure would be to allow businesses to take tax deductions for PPP expenses despite the tax-exempt nature of PPP proceeds.
