Small businesses that manage to get their Paycheck Protection Program loans forgiven may find themselves losing valuable tax breaks, according to new guidance from the Internal Revenue Service.
Companies that qualify for loan forgiveness under legislation Congress approved won’t be able to deduct the wages or other businesses expenses they paid for using the loan, according to an IRS notice published Thursday.
“This treatment prevents a double tax benefit,” the agency said in the notice. “This conclusion is consistent with prior guidance of the IRS.”
The guidance clarifies a point of confusion in the $670 billion small business loan program to help businesses struggling as the coronavirus has brought the economy to a standstill. The law states that the forgiven loan won’t be taxed, but didn’t specify whether companies could still write off the expenses they covered with that money.
Milo Spirig joined Accrual in 2025. Milo spent more than a decade in fintech at Brex, Stripe, and Citibank. At Brex, Milo led product teams building corporate travel, accounts payable, and API products. Previously, at Stripe, Milo led strategic financial partnerships, focused on expanding the global footprint with card networks and financial institutions. Milo received his MBA from INSEAD and holds a BA in Financial Economics from the University of Rochester.
Siddarth Chandrasekaran co-founded Accrual in 2024. He previously served as Principal Engineer at Stripe, where he was among the first ten employees. At Stripe, Siddarth spent over eleven years designing and building financial infrastructure that moves hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide. He began his career as an early engineering intern at Twitter. Sidd is currently pursuing CPA certification. He holds a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University.
Brendan Coffey is a freelance reporter for American Banker. Coffey has spent years writing about business, markets and innovative thinkers, during which he called Carl Icahn more times than he can remember, split a bottle of wine with Gordon Getty three times and was cursed at by Leon Cooperman more than once. His prior stints include finance reporter at Sportico, founding senior reporter for Bloomberg News' billionaires news team, reporter for Forbes magazine, commodities and bond reporter at Dow Jones and freelancer for Fortune, Esquire, Barron's, Inc. and The Washington Post Magazine. Coffey graduated from Boston College Phi Beta Kappa with honors. He lives in Newburyport, Mass., and has broken only one finger playing vintage baseball.
The tax code permits companies to write off businesses expenses, such as wages, rent and transportation expenses, but generally doesn’t allow write-offs for tax-exempt income.
The ruling adds to the list of stumbling blocks facing businesses as they try to qualify for the Paycheck Protection Program loans.
Small businesses have reported technical issues in trying to apply for the funds, which restarted Monday after the first round of funding ran out after just 13 days.
The program, run by the Small Business Administration, provides funds to cover eight weeks of payroll costs and the loans are forgiven if the employers keep workers on the job or quickly rehire laid-off workers.