Tag Archives: PPP2

Covid-19 Relief Program Updates and Q&A Webinar

COVID Relief Program Updates and Q&A – Wegner CPAs

My excellent colleagues over at Wegner CPAs are providing yet another free webinar on the remaining Covid-19 relief programs for small business owners.

Do you still have questions about the COVID relief programs? Join us for an overview of what’s available and learn about any updates to the:

  • Paycheck Protection Program
  • Employee Retention Credit
  • Economic Injury Disaster Loan Advance Program
  • Shuttered Venue Operators Grant
  • Restaurant Revitalization Fund Program

Please indicate questions you have about these programs during registration so they can be addressed in the presentation. Time will also be available for live Q&A.

Presented by:

Kate Serpe, CPA, Senior Manager, joined Wegner CPAs as an intern in 2010 and was hired full-time as part of the Accounting Solutions Group in 2011. Kate has experience providing controllership and CFO services to cooperatives and not for profit organizations and specializes in board presentations and assisting clients with strategic planning.

Dan Bergs, CPA, Senior Manager, joined Wegner CPAs as an intern in 2008 and started full-time after graduation in 2010. He specializes in working individual and business clients providing them with a variety of tax and accounting services.


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

How To Apply for PPP Forgiveness (Loans $150K Or Less; No Employees) Using Biz2Credit

Screenshot from Biz2Credit forgiveness process.

Note: this is an update to an existing blog post — the instructions below are specific to the Biz2Credit PPP lending platform. If you received your loan through another platform, please see my original post.

For over a year we waited for legislation from Congress as well as guidance from both the SBA and IRS as to the interplay between the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). It appears the last of that guidance was issued on August 10, 2021 — so, at this point, as long as you have worked out the interplay between PPP and the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), then you should go ahead and apply. Which means that if you are a sole proprietor and have no employees, you are ready to apply — since ERC is only an issue if you have W-2 employees or are a W-2 employee of your own company.

For PPP draws in 2021, our firm participated in a joint program by AICPA and Biz2Credit called the “CPA Loan Portal”. We’ve prepared the following step-by-step instructions for clients of ours who were funded through this system — however, I believe the instructions are the same for small business owners who applied directly with Biz2Credit. (Let us know in the comments if this is the case or if you had to tweak the approach at all.)

First, a couple general comments for borrowers of $150k or less who are self-employed with no employees:

  • For self-employed with no employees, it’s an “owner compensation replacement” approach, which means you will have 2.5 months’ worth of your prior-year net profit (or gross profit, for those who applied for PPP funding under the last-minute changes to the rules) automatically forgiven. Your forgiveness amount should exactly equal your loan amount, presuming the original loan was calculated properly.
  • According to Biz2Credit on their July 1 webinar (from their PPP Forgiveness Required Documents Customer Guidebook), no documentation is required for sole proprietors with loans of $150k or less:

How-To Instructions for PPP Forgiveness – AICPA Biz2Credit Application – Self-Employed with No Employees

First things first, decide whether you’d like to fill out the forgiveness application yourself or whether you’d like your CPA firm to do it for you for a small fee. Once you’ve informed them that you’d like to DIY, they will need to “assign” the forgiveness application to you, which will trigger an email that looks something like this:

Once you log in to your account using the credentials you created when you signed the PPP draw application just before getting funded, you’ll be walked through a series of screens.

Click the “Apply for Loan Forgiveness” button.

Most of the information will be automatically filled in based on the initial loan application information. There is no need to enter information in any of the fields marked “(Optional)”. Click the “Confirm” button.

A pop-up should suggest you use the 3508-S application, the simplest one – click the Continue button to go to the Basic PPP Loan Information screen.

Covered Period Start Date should default to the disbursement date as the start date. The duration of the covered period can be anywhere from 8-to-24 weeks; if the applicant is self-employed with no employees, we suggest a 10-week period. The end-date will auto-fill.

Most of the information will fill in automatically, but you will have to note the number of employees at the time of the forgiveness application – for self-employed with no employees, the answer is 1.

For a self-employed person with no employees, the Amount of Loan Spent on Payroll Costs should be the full amount of the PPP loan.

Click the green “Next” button on the lower-right corner to continue.

A pop-up will come up – read and click “Accept & Continue” if you agree.

You should get a screen confirming the form was completed and letting you know they have sent an email with a link to Docusign the application. Do not click the “Continue” button until you sign the application. Open your email program in a separate tab to find the email from Biz2Credit Contract Support via Docusign, with the subject, “Biz2Credit : PPP Loan Forgiveness Application Form 3508S”. Keep in mind that it may be in the “Promotions” or “Updates” tab, or in Spam.

Click the orange “Review Document” button in the email.

The Docusign document should open in a separate tab – you may need to allow it to access your location.

Checkmark the agreement and click “Continue”.

Click the “Start” button and follow the guidelines to initial twice and then sign the form. Click the “Finish” button when you are done. Save a copy for your own records.

Go back to the Biz2Credit tab and click “Continue” (if you accidentally closed the tab, please go to the Biz2Credit site and log in again). It is essential that you click the “Continue” button to submit the application.

Click “Ok” on the pop-up. This will take you back to the dashboard – at the bottom, instead of the “Apply for Loan Forgiveness” button, you should see two links: View Submission and View Documents. There is no need to click on these at this point, but seeing them is reassurance that your application has in fact been submitted.

(If you did not download the form after Docusigning, then you can do it at this point, by clicking “View Documents”. It will then take you to a screen with a long list of possible documents – the top link (“E-signed 3508”) allows you to download a pdf of the e-signed document for your records.)

You will receive two more emails from Biz2Credit: 1) an email via Docusign allowing you to view or download the completed document (which at this point you’ve already done); and, 2) a confirmation that your loan forgiveness application is being sent to the SBA.

Now sit tight and await a confirmation email from Biz2Credit once the SBA has forgiven the loan – please make sure to forward this to your CPA firm… and congratulations!

Note: Even though no documentation for loans under $150k is required, occasionally there will be a follow-up email from Biz2Credit requesting certain items. Please forward to your CPA firm if this occurs and they will advise (and they’ll inform your Biz2Credit lending rep that this step should not be required).

For self-employed folks with no employees, the PPP Forgiveness process is very straightforward. Please let us know in the comments if you come across challenges, so others can learn from your experiences — especially for those who applied directly with Biz2Credit instead of through your CPA. Best of luck to you all!


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

How To Apply For PPP Forgiveness (Loans Over $150K, Non-ERC-Eligible Companies)

From the PPP forgiveness guide at – https://bench.co/blog/operations/ppp-loan-forgiveness/

For over a year I’ve been answering the question, “when should we apply for PPP Loan Forgiveness?” And for over a year I’ve been responding, “not yet; there’s still so much that’s up in the air” — as AICPA (thankfully) recommended we wait for legislation from Congress as well as guidance from both the SBA and IRS.

Well, on June 24th, they gave us the green light in the AICPA Town Hall Series. Lisa Simpson said that if you have worked out the interplay between PPP and the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), then you should go ahead and apply.

This means that if you are a sole proprietor or partnership and have no employees, you are ready to apply — since ERC is only an issue if you have W-2 employees or are a W-2 employee of your own company. See my recent blog post for easy instructions.

It also means that if you have employees (or are an employee yourself), but you know that your company does not qualify for ERC, you are ready to apply. See below for less-than-easy but still DIY-worthy instructions.

(Of course, this means that if you qualify for ERC and haven’t worked out the interplay yet, you should consider holding off for now — consider using my recommended approach to moving forward with PPP Forgiveness without jeopardizing ERC, highlighted in a recent blog post.)

So… now what?

For borrowers of more than $150k who had no wage or FTE reductions, or who qualify for a safe harbor/exemption:

  • As your loan was higher than $150k, you do not qualify to file the simplest PPP Forgiveness form (3508S). However, presuming you followed all the rules and had no reductions, you do qualify for the “EZ” form (3508EZ). Please make sure your lender allows you to use this approach. For reference, here is the forgiveness application form (pages 1-4) and instructions – but for the actual forgiveness process, instead of filling the form out, you will apply through your lender’s loan portal and it will walk you through the steps. Please carefully read through the checklist and instructions on pages 5-9.
  • Please also read through this Form 3508EZ Step-by-Step guide before beginning the process at your lender’s portal, as the questions you will be asked mirror the actual application.
  • Some important tips when going through the process:
    • Have your original PPP loan application and loan documents handy so you can make sure the info on your forgiveness application matches it exactly (legal name, DBA, address, NAICS code, EIN/SSN, loan number, number of employees at time of loan application).
    • Number of employees at time of loan application and forgiveness application are both simple head-counts, not FTEs or full- vs. part-time or anything else.
    • Covered Period is the date you received the funds through 24 weeks later, unless you determined a shorter period would be advantageous.
    • We recommend the “Amount of Loan Spent on Payroll Costs” total is not any higher than the minimum needed for forgiveness.
    • “Requested Loan Forgiveness Amount” should be the exact full total of your PPP Loan.
    • If you were unable to operate at full capacity, you may check the second box on the checklist, which means there is no requirement to fulfill the FTE (full-time equivalent) test.

Regarding backup documentation that you must submit with your application, keep in mind that what is considered acceptable support is up to each individual lender.
 – Payroll: your lender may ask you for bank account statements, payroll tax form 941s, and canceled checks for benefit invoices as proof of payment.
 – Nonpayroll: For rent/mortgage/utilities payments, your lender may ask for documentation that the obligation/services existed prior to 2/15/2020. They are likely to ask for proof of payment for all amounts claimed in this section.

If there is any concern that you might not have fulfilled the wage reduction or FTE tests, or that you do not meet a safe harbor or exemption for them, we strongly suggest working with a trusted advisor to prepare your PPP Forgiveness application, as it gets extremely complicated. Our approach, to be safe, has been to download the free Form 3508 PPP Forgiveness Calculator from the AICPA, regardless of which form you qualify to submit, so as to run all the numbers for the wage reduction test, and fill out the information to see if you are exempt from the FTE test or not. If you are not exempt, the AICPA also offers a free FTE calculator. We then suggest you retain these files as backup in case of audit, even if you end up passing all the tests and qualifying to submit a simpler form than the full 3508.


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

How To Apply for PPP Forgiveness (Loans $150K Or Less, No Employees/ Non-ERC-Eligible Companies)

From the PPP forgiveness guide at – https://bench.co/blog/operations/ppp-loan-forgiveness/

For over a year I’ve been answering the question, “when should we apply for PPP Loan Forgiveness?” And for over a year I’ve been responding, “not yet; there’s still so much that’s up in the air” — as AICPA (thankfully) recommended we wait for legislation from Congress as well as guidance from both the SBA and IRS.

Well, on June 24th, they gave us the green light in the AICPA Town Hall Series. Lisa Simpson said that if you have worked out the interplay between PPP and the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), then you should go ahead and apply.

This means that if you are a sole proprietor or partnership and have no employees, you are ready to apply — since ERC is only an issue if you have W-2 employees or are a W-2 employee of your own company.

(Of course, this means that if you do qualify for ERC and you haven’t worked out the interplay yet, you should consider holding off for now — consider using my recommended approach to moving forward with PPP Forgiveness without jeopardizing ERC, highlighted in a recent blog post.)

So… now what?

For borrowers of $150k or less who are self-employed with no employees:

  • For self-employed with no employees, it’s an “owner compensation replacement” approach, which means you will have 2.5 months’ worth of your 2019 net profit automatically forgiven. That is why the form is so simple. Your forgiveness amount should exactly equal your loan amount, presuming the original loan was calculated properly.
  • For reference, here is the forgiveness application form – but most lenders will have you actually apply through their own loan portal, which will walk you through the process. Just be clear that you are a self-employed individual with no employees, that your loan was $150k or less, and so you qualify for Form 3508S.
  • The best instructions I’ve read are here: How to complete Form 3508S for Self-Employed Individuals with no Employees | SCORE
  • It should not matter how long you select for your covered period — anywhere between 8 and 24 weeks — but the first- and second-draws cannot overlap (your first loan covered period must be short enough that it ends before your second loan covered period starts).
  • You can indicate that you spent the entire loan on payroll.
  • Have your original PPP loan application and loan documents handy so you can make sure the info on your forgiveness application matches it exactly (legal name, DBA, address, NAICS code, EIN/SSN, loan number, number of employees at time of loan application).

And according to AICPA Funding Partner, Biz2Credit, on today’s July 1 webinar (from their PPP Forgiveness Required Documents Customer Guidebook):

(This had been the case for all the lenders I’ve seen so far, but the jury seemed to still be out for some of them, including Biz2Credit — so this was a relief.)

For self-employed folks with no employees, the PPP Forgiveness process should be very straightforward, from everything I’ve seen so far. Please let me know in the comments if you come across challenges, so others can learn from your experiences. Best of luck to you all!


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

FREE Webinar Series For Small Biz Owners – Making Sense of Financial Relief Programs

My trusted colleagues over at Wegner CPAs are putting on a two-week series of FREE webinars geared toward small business owners. They will go through each of the following current Federal relief programs designed to help small businesses make it through to a brighter day:

  1. Employee Retention Credit 2021
  2. Employee Retention Credit 2020
  3. Shuttered Venue Operator Grants
  4. Paycheck Protection Program
  5. Restaurant Revitalization Fund
  6. Economic Injury Disaster Loans

All of these programs have been changed over the past month to make them more useful to small business owners — often with the effect that multiple programs are available simultaneously. The resulting complexity is a real challenge, but the amount of financial relief available makes it worth learning what you can (and potentially working with a professional to make it happen).

We have been reaching out directly to clients who we believe qualify for each of these programs — but if you work with us and think you are eligible, yet haven’t been contacted, please let me know.

Webinar Series: Making Cent$$ of Stimulus Money

You can view Wegner CPAs’ Covid-19 Resources and click “webinars”, or see a calendar of all their upcoming webinars and view a selection of previously recorded webinars.

Employee Retention Credit 2021
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET)
ERC in 2021 can result in big dollars for your organization. We will discuss how to determine if you’re eligible and how to be sure you file for the credit timely.
Register

Employee Retention Credit 2020
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET)
Were you eligible for ERC in 2020? Find out as we take a deeper dive into the credit eligibility requirements and rules for last year. We’ll also review what you need to do to claim the credit for 2020.
Register

Shuttered Venue Operator Grants
Thursday, April 1, 2021
10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET)
The SVOG portal opens on April 8th. Are you eligible and ready to apply? Join us to learn more about the program and what you need to be doing now to prepare.
Register

Paycheck Protection Program
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET)
Updates continue to roll out for PPP. We’ll discuss what the soon to be signed extension means for applicants and tips on getting through the application process. We’ll also review the updated loan calculation for Schedule C filers. Don’t forget about PPP loan forgiveness!
Register

Restaurant Revitalization Fund
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET)
The SBA announced that they hope to have RRF up and running by early April. We will review timely released guidance and how to prepare for applying to the program.
Register

Economic Injury Disaster Loans
Thursday, April 8, 2021
10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET)
The EIDL program has continued to evolve over this last year. There are EIDL loans and EIDL grant advances. Are you eligible for either? Learn more about this program and the changes that have come from the last two stimulus bills.
Register

If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Updates As Of March 21, 2021

Ah, the PPP. We thought our daily struggle with you last summer was as challenging as it would get. How naïve we were!

Lots of changes to the program have occurred as of late — all to the theoretical benefit of borrowers, though in practice not as welcome as one might expect.

Here’s a summary:

1) Schedule C filers (self-employed, independent contractors, freelancers, most single-member LLCs, and others) may now — moving forward — use a new calculation that is more advantageous when calculating the loan amount. The total loan is now based on 2.5 (or 3.5 if in hospitality) months of gross income (Line 7) rather than net income (Line 31).

Per the AICPA, “if a Schedule C filer has employees, the borrower may elect to calculate the owner compensation share of its payroll costs based on either net profit or gross income minus expenses reported on lines 14 (employee benefit programs), 19 (pension and profit-sharing plans), and 26 (wages (less employment credits)) of Schedule C. If a Schedule C filer has no employees, the borrower may simply choose to calculate its loan amount based on either net profit or gross income.”

This is indeed excellent news, but a) why this didn’t get applied to partnerships as well — which are entities following the same concept as Schedule C filers, only with more than one owner — is totally illogical; and, b) this is a slap in the face to the many millions of PPP borrowers who got practically nothing under the old rules and are now bound to them, as this new rule is not retroactive. AICPA has issued a statement about the inherent unfairness, calling on Congress to correct it.

Furthermore, many lenders have not bothered to re-program their systems with the new rules, as the program is slated to close by March 31 (see below re: pending extension).

2) The safe harbor for the “good faith loan necessity certification” for First Draw loans using the new Schedule C calculation is reduced from $2M to $150,000. If your loan is in this range, carefully consider which calculation you wish to use and weigh the difference against the risks.

3) Businesses that receive a first- or second-draw PPP loan after Dec. 27, 2020, may now also receive a Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG), with the proceeds from the PPP loan subtracted from the amount of the SVOG. Venue operators do not have to subtract any PPP funding received before Dec. 27, 2020. (More here.)

4) Many more non-profits are eligible for PPP loans than in previous iterations of the program, as well as internet-only news and periodical publishers. (More here.)

5) Costs eligible for loan forgiveness in the revised PPP include payroll, rent, covered mortgage interest, and utilities, as well as these types:

  • Covered worker protection and facility modification expenditures, including PPE, to comply with COVID-19 federal health & safety guidelines.
  • Covered property damage costs related to property damage and vandalism or looting due to public disturbances in 2020 that were not covered by insurance.
  • Expenditures to suppliers that are essential at the time of purchase to the recipient’s current operations.
  • Covered operating expenditures, which refer to payments for any business software or cloud computing service that facilitates business operations; product or service delivery; the processing, payment, or tracking of payroll expenses; human resources; sales and billing functions; or accounting or tracking of supplies, inventory, records, and expenses.

6) To be eligible for full loan forgiveness, PPP borrowers will have to spend no less than 60% of the funds on payroll over a covered period between eight and 24 weeks’ long (no longer either/or, but any period in-between).

7) Improvements in the PPP have unfortunately led to slowdowns. Though the program is now more focused on and directed toward helping the struggling businesses who need it most — smaller ones, minority- and women-owned, hospitality industry, etc. — it’s been handled in a haphazard way that has confused applicants and lenders alike. And safeguards put in place by the SBA to combat fraud had the unwelcome consequence of holding up millions of valid applications.

8) There is legislation currently pending to extend the current PPP round’s deadline to May 31, but that has not yet been approved. The House voted almost unanimously to extend, but the Senate has not yet acted. Unless they act soon, this week will be the last in which to submit applications.

9) The program our firm uses — AICPA’s CPA Loan Portal — as well as many others, is already closed to new applicants as well as the public, and one must go through a validated partner firm such as ours in order to apply. However, I have heard that Cross River Bank (my favorite lender from the first round) is still accepting applications. Their FAQ, as well as their list of required documents by entity type, are both quality-information and well-organized. Please read those sections before applying. I have recently been informed that Lendio is also still accepting applications. (These are not affiliate links; I do not earn anything for referrals.)


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

Why You Should Still Hold Off on PPP1 Forgiveness Applications

Many clients and colleagues have reached out to me over the past two months to ask whether they should apply for PPP1 forgiveness yet, and my answer (and that of the AICPA) is still “not quite yet”. But rather than just pushing off the question of “but when” into the future, I wanted to publicly share our company’s strategy and timeline for handling these applications.

The deadline to apply for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) forgiveness is 10 months after the end of the covered period — which for most folks for the first round was 24-weeks — so that wouldn’t be until sometime in July 2021 for the earliest borrowers. (It’s not really a deadline, but it’s the date on which the lender will start requiring loan payments, so I think of it as one.)

We’re planning to dedicate May & June 2021 to working through all our existing clients’ PPP forgiveness applications. There are many clarifications we’re still waiting for (they keep dribbling out of Congress, IRS, and the SBA bit by bit, with occasional leaps), and the interaction between the PPP and other types of financial relief is complex.

In particular, the rules surrounding the 2020 Employee Retention Credit — which until recently was not an option for PPP borrowers — are vague and complex, even with the recent IRS Notice and FAQ. Furthermore, most payroll companies have not figured out how to collect the information and prepare the 4th-quarter Form 941 forms for partial quarters, and we may end up having to file some ERC requests manually. (Don’t get me started on this one.)

An example of how the changing rules affect applications: the EIDL advance grant was previously supposed to be subtracted from PPP forgiveness; but by asking our clients to wait on their forgiveness applications, they were able to take advantage of a December 2020 change that removes this requirement, saving them many thousands of dollars. (Though thankfully, it sounds like SBA will eventually refund those amounts to businesses who applied before this new rule went into effect.)

As if these reasons weren’t enough, in a recent on-demand AICPA Town Hall, they mentioned that:
– Most lenders are not actively taking forgiveness applications because their teams are focused on administering PPP2.
– SBA is working very slowly on forgiveness process because they are also focused on PPP2.
– The new simplified form for $150k and under will not be worked into the SBA system until sometime in March.

Between the constantly-changing rules for PPP and the guidance and calculations needed for ERC, we’re still following the recommendation of the AICPA and asking folks to hold off on PPP1 forgiveness applications, until tax season is behind us all and the IRS can focus on the remaining questions, allowing us to be methodical and consistent in our approach.

There’s no reason to be nervous about holding off on forgiveness — of the one-third of PPP loans that have been submitted for forgiveness, fully 99% of the loan dollars have been forgiven. The very small amount that have not are small loans at only 1% interest. Furthermore, by waiting you are giving your business the best chance at maximizing other types of financial relief, especially as the new Biden-Harris administration is in the process of changing rules to make them more attainable for a larger number of the smallest businesses out there, as well as Congress creating new funding opportunities.

(For tips on planning for the potential Employee Retention Credit, see my next blog post.)


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

Changes to Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Starting Feb 24

A slide from this morning’s CPA Loan Portal-AICPA update.

Big changes yet again in the world of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), where it sometimes seems the only constant is change.

The White House released a Fact Sheet early yesterday indicating immediate changes to the program intended to shift focus to small businesses with few or no employees, and increase program access to those who may otherwise have been shut out.

The five main changes, as summarized in the CPA Loan Portal-AICPA slide above (from this morning’s webinar), are in two different areas — “Focusing On Small Businesses” and “Increasing Program Access”, and are as follows:

  1. Starting Wednesday, a temporary pause in applications for 20+ employee businesses.
  2. New eligibility calculation rules for Schedule C self-employed (see below).
  3. Borrowers with non-fraud convictions will no longer be prevented from applying.
  4. Student loan delinquency will no longer prevent borrowers from applying.
  5. Clarify that ITIN applications for non-citizens will be accepted.

The biggest take-away for our client base is #2 above — this particular section of the White House statement:

Help sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed individuals receive more financial support.
These types of businesses, which include home repair contractors, beauticians, and small independent retailers, make up a significant majority of all businesses. Of these businesses, those without employees are 70 percent owned by women and people of color. Yet many are structurally excluded from the PPP or were approved for as little as $1 because of how PPP loans are calculated. To address this problem, the Biden-Harris administration will revise the loan calculation formula for these applicants so that it offers more relief, and establish a $1 billion set aside for businesses in this category without employees located in low- and moderate-income (LMI) areas.

The SBA followed up with their own release shortly afterwards, stating, “The 14-day exclusivity period will start on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 9 am, while the other four changes will be implemented by the first week of March. The SBA is working on the program changes and will communicate details throughout this week.”

Therefore, self-employed taxpayers should wait until the new rules are released next week to apply for PPP funds.

What does this mean for applicants and their advisors?

PPP loans are based on wages to employees, which are subject to “payroll tax” (or “Social Security & Medicare taxes”). Whereas for certain types of one-person companies that don’t have payroll, the amount is calculated based on the net profit from IRS 1040 Schedule C — the amount on which “self-employment tax” is paid (also known as “Social Security & Medicare taxes”).

As CNBC reports, because of this method of defining “payroll” for the self-employed, some applicants saw very low loan amounts in previous rounds of the program, because they make very little in profit.

To “fix” the issue, the SBA is revising the formula to match what it uses for farmers. This basically means that they will calculate loan amounts from gross income instead of net profit.

This means that millions of small business owners who posted a loss in 2019 or 2020 will still be able to apply for PPP funds, based on their revenues before deductions are taken.

This sounds wonderful — and to some extent is — but it’s inherently unfair to partnership owners, who also have their PPP loans based on self-employment income. It’s also unfair to the millions of Schedule C filers who already applied for both rounds of the PPP without the benefit of this changed rule.

In a Forbes article from yesterday afternoon, Brian Thompson pointed out, “even more important is the question of whether this formula will be retroactive for those sole proprietors who have already applied. We don’t know yet whether these businesses will be allowed to gross up based on the new formula.”

As for small business advisors, it puts us back in a sprint again, during an already-grueling tax season. This morning, we developed our plan internally for next steps, which is to identify:

1) Clients who file Schedule C;
2) Who have not filed for PPP;
3) Because they have a loss or very low income on Line 31 of their 2019 Schedule C.

Then we’ll reach out to each one of them to explain that they may in fact be eligible for PPP after all, and to offer to prepare their application through our CPA Loan Portal, as we’ve been doing since early January for all our clients who qualify.

Although I am extremely grateful for this opportunity for small business owners, the inequity of the situation is extremely upsetting; we will see if additional changes are made that allow partnerships and prior applicants to use the same rules. But even if those concessions are made, there is an inherent issue with using gross revenues rather than net — which is that other types of single-member companies (S-corps, C-corps, Non-profits and Co-operatives) did not have the same option, and I know quite a few that suffered from lack of PPP funding as a result; even harder-hit were newer companies that did not show a 25% decrease from 2019 to 2020. (It’s hard not to go up from zero.)

I could go on, but I won’t, because it’s tax season and I have to take care of client deliverables in the midst of it all. Who knew that client financial relief would be such a moving target?


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

Cómo Aplicar Un Préstamo Del Programa de Protección de Cheques de Pago (PPP) – GRATIS – En Español

Explico el proceso para solicitar un préstamo del Programa de Protección de Cheques de Pago.

The webinar I gave last week on how to apply for a PPP loan was translated into Spanish by the talented Elsa Prado — just click the image above to hear the whole thing in Spanish.

She was also kind enough to invite me as a guest on her Spanish-language show Alas de Amor on Radio Dimension Latina FM last Saturday — and I managed to pull off most of it without resorting to English, though she was kind enough to expertly translate when I did. (Our session is from about 3:30-35:30 -ish.)

Alas de Amor on Radio Dimension Latina FM — https://fb.watch/3IztQD22aS/

Algunos aspectos destacados:

Estoy muy ansioso por difundir este importante programa de ayuda financiera para empresas pequeñas, se llama PPP. El Programa de Protección de Cheques de Pago (PPP) de la SBA se abrió para una otra ronda de solicitudes, hasta las 31 de marzo. Este programa proporciona a las pequeñas empresas fondos para costos de nómina, alquiler, servicios públicos y otras categorías nuevas de gastos adicionales.

Necesitas solicitar un préstamo PPP a través de un banco u otra institución financiera, no directamente a través de la SBA. Además, no tienes que solicitar el préstamo de tu banco principal. Hay muchos diferentes bancos, prestamistas y otras instituciones financieras que pueden ayudarle a presentar la solicitud.

En la primera ronda de préstamos PPP en abril de 2020, había muchos problemas con las aplicaciones. No había suficiente información sobre cómo presentar la solicitud y a veces había información contradictoria. Esto resultó en bastantes problemas para los negocios que trataron de solicitar préstamos PPP1.

Después de los desafíos de abril, la SBA publicó más información sobre cómo presentar una solicitud y el congreso presentó nueva legislación retroactiva que resolvió muchos de los problemas originales.

Las reglas ahora son más claras y beneficiosas para las pequeñas empresas.

La nueva ronda de préstamos PPP está abierta y la fecha límite para las solicitudes es el 31 de marzo. ¡Todavía hay tiempo para presentar su solicitud – incluso para la primera ronda de préstamos PPP!


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.

How To Apply For The Paycheck Protection Program – FREE Step-By-Step Webinar With Slides & Links

This past Wednesday, February 17th 2021, I was honored once again to participate in State Representative Will Guzzardi’s FREE Facebook Live series designed to help his constituents — and anyone else who wants to tune in — to learn about financial relief during Covid-19.

We did an entire hour-long session on how to determine eligibility and apply for the current round of the Paycheck Protection Program, which is designed to be open through March 31, 2021 or until funds run out.

The full-length webinar is FREE, as are the slides, resources and links to walk you through the application process. Additionally, a PDF version of the slides is available for download here:

We covered the following topics:
1) Paycheck Protection Program Summary
2) Current Program Overview
3) Eligibility
4) How To Apply
5) Where To Apply
6) Forgiveness Basics
7) Resources & Questions

Please share far and wide to help small business owners learn about the current status of the Paycheck Protection Program and how they can determine eligibility and apply for a non-taxable forgivable loan to help their companies stay afloat during these challenging times.


If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.