Paycheck Protection Program Application Information

Congress has passed the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021,” which includes many provisions to assist small businesses, including an expansion of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). We are thrilled that this program is available again to support small businesses through the pandemic.

Pursuit will be administering this round of PPP loans, and we expect that many of our borrowers will qualify for additional PPP funds. The legislation also provides a more streamlined loan forgiveness process for those businesses that already have PPP loans.

Below are the key provisions included in the Act:

Paycheck Protection Program Second Draw Loans

Creates a second loan from the Paycheck Protection Program, called a “PPP second draw” loan for smaller and harder-hit businesses, with a maximum amount of $2 million.

Eligibility 

In order to receive a PPP loan under this section, your business must:

• Employ not more than 300 employees;
• Have used or will use the full amount of your first PPP loan
• Demonstrate at least a 25 percent reduction in gross receipts in the first, second, or third quarter of 2020 relative to the same 2019 quarter. Applicable timelines are provided for businesses that were not in operation in Q1, Q2, and Q3, and Q4 of 2019. Applications submitted on or after January 1, 2021, are eligible to use the gross receipts from the fourth quarter of 2020.
• Eligible entities must be businesses, certain non-profit organizations, housing cooperatives, veterans’ organizations, tribal businesses, self-employed individuals, sole proprietors, independent contractors, and small agricultural co-operatives.

Loan terms

In general, you may receive a loan amount of up to 2.5x your average monthly payroll costs in the one year prior to the loan or the calendar year. No loan can be greater than $2 million.

• Seasonal employers may calculate their maximum loan amount based on a 12-week period beginning February 15, 2019, through February 15, 2020
• New entities may receive loans of up to 2.5x of average monthly payroll costs.
• Entities in industries assigned to NAICS code 72 (Accommodation and Food Services) may receive loans of up to 3.5x average monthly payroll costs.
• Businesses with multiple locations that are eligible entities under the initial PPP requirements may employ not more than 300 employees per physical location.
• Waivers of affiliation rules that applied during initial PPP loans apply to a second loan.
• An eligible entity may only receive one PPP second draw loan.
• Fees are waived for both borrowers and lenders to encourage participation.
• For loans less than $150,000, the business may submit a certification attesting that they meet the revenue loss requirements on or before the date the business submits their loan forgiveness application, and non-profit and veterans organizations may utilize gross receipts to calculate their revenue loss standard.

Loan forgiveness

Borrowers of a PPP second draw loan would be eligible for loan forgiveness equal to the sum of their payroll costs, as well as covered mortgage, rent, and utility payments, covered operations expenditures, covered property damage costs, covered supplier costs, and covered worker protection expenditures incurred during the covered period. The 60/40 cost allocation between payroll and non-payroll costs in order to receive full forgiveness will continue to apply.

Loan Forgiveness Process

The Act creates a simplified application process for loans under $150,000 as follows:

• A borrower shall receive forgiveness if they sign and submit to the lender a certification that is not more than one page in length, includes a description of the number of employees the borrower was able to retain because of the covered loan, the estimated total amount of the loan spent on payroll costs, and the total loan amount. The borrower must also attest that they accurately provided the required certification and complied with PPP loan requirements. SBA must establish this form within 24 days of enactment and may not require additional materials unless necessary to substantiate revenue loss requirements or satisfy relevant statutory or regulatory requirements. Additionally, borrowers are required to retain relevant records related to employment for four years and other records for three years. The Administrator may review and audit these loans to ensure against fraud.
• This applies to loans made before, on, or after the date of enactment of the Act, including the forgiveness of the loan.

Additional Eligible Expenses

The Act makes the following expenses allowable and forgivable uses for PPP funds:

• Covered operations: Payment for any software, cloud computing, and other human resources and accounting needs.
• Covered property damage: Costs related to property damage due to public disturbances that occurred during 2020 that are not covered by insurance.
• Covered supplier: Expenditures to a supplier pursuant to a contract, purchase order, or order for goods in effect prior to taking out the loan that are essential to the recipient’s operations at the time at which the expenditure was made. Supplier costs of perishable goods can be made before or during the life of the loan.
• Covered worker protection expenditure: Personal protective equipment and adaptive investments to help a loan recipient comply with federal health and safety guidelines or any equivalent State and local guidance related to COVID-19 during the period between March 1, 2020, and the end of the national emergency

Repeal of EIDL Advance Deduction

• Repeals section 1110(e)(6) of the CARES Act, which requires PPP borrowers to deduct the amount of their EIDL advance from their PPP forgiveness amount.
• Establishes the Sense of Congress that EIDL Advance borrowers should be made whole without regard to whether those borrowers are eligible for PPP forgiveness.
• Requires the Administrator to issue rules that ensure borrowers are made whole if they received forgiveness and their EIDL grant amount was deducted from the forgiveness amount paid.

Extension of Section 1112 Payments, the debt relief program

• Resumes the payment of principal and interest (P&I) on small business loans guaranteed by the SBA under the 7(a), 504, and Microloan programs, established under Section 1112 of the CARES Act.
• Provides that all borrowers with qualifying loans approved by the SBA prior to the CARES Act will receive an additional three months of P&I, starting in February 2021. Going forward, those payments will be capped at $9,000 per borrower per month.
• Provides that, after the three-month period described above, borrowers considered to be underserved—i.e., the smallest and hardest-hit by the pandemic—will receive an additional five months of P&I payments, also capped at $9,000 per borrower per month. These include:
  • Borrowers with SBA microloans or 7(a) Community Advantage loans
  • Borrowers with any 7(a) or 504 loan in the hardest-hit sectors, as measured by the severity of sector-wide job losses since the start of the pandemic, including all those belong to 2- and 3- digit NAICS categories with the most severe job losses since the start of the pandemic: accommodation and food services (72); arts, entertainment, and recreation (71); educational services (61); mining and logging (213); apparel (315); clothing and clothing accessory stores (448); sporting goods, hobby, book, and music stores (451); air transportation (481); transit and ground passenger transportation (485); scenic and sightseeing transportation (487); publishing industries, except Internet (511); motion picture and sound recording industries (512); broadcasting, except Internet (515); rental and leasing services (532); and personal and laundry services (812).
• Provides SBA payments of P&I on the first 6 months of newly approved loans will resume for all loans approved between February 1 and September 30, 2021, also capped at $9,000 per month.

Tax Treatment

• Specifies that all Section 1112 payments are considered non-taxable income, which shall apply both retroactively to any payment made to any borrower starting with the enactment of Section 1112 of the CARES Act and prospectively.