In order to help small business impacted by Coronavirus-related issues between February 15 and June 30, 2020, the CARES Act allows those businesses to apply for loans to cover eligible expenses during the covered period.

Eligible expenses include:

  • Payroll costs
  • Costs related to the continuation of group health-care benefits during periods of paid sick, medical, or family leave and insurance premiums
  • Employee’s salaries, commissions, or similar compensation
  • Payments of interest on any mortgage obligations (not including prepayment fees or payment of principal on the mortgage itself)
  • Rent (including rents under a lease agreement)
  • Utilities
  • Interest on any other debt obligations that were incurred before the relevant covered period

We applied for this program on April 3, 2020 and are awaiting approval.

The Small Business Administration will forgive all loans under this program if:

  • Loans are used exclusively for their intended purposes (see bullet points directly above)
  • Loans are used to offset no more than eight weeks (the maximum amount of time payroll expenses would be fully offset) of eligible payroll expenses
  • Businesses retain employees at salary levels comparable to before the crisis

Once we have received the funds, leadership will work diligently to allocate those funds appropriately to offset the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, isolation and shelter-in-place orders, and changes to our business operations as a result of project / workflow changes resulting from client concerns.

If you’d like some juicy reading, the Treasury Department has prepared an Overview as well as an Information Sheet designed to answer small business questions.

The Tax Foundation has also provided a good summary of the Paycheck Protection Program that’s easy to understand.