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.
Robert Maynard is the founder of SurchX.
Oliver Tearle is head of research at The ai Corporation
Sumit Punjabi is senior manager of RPA strategy, digital strategy and business transformation at NTT DATA Services. He is a management consultant with extensive global consulting experience spanning the breadth of robotics process automation strategy and roadmap definition, digital strategy assessments, customer journey re-engineering, business transformation, business process management, program management, change management and implementation of various policy level changes impacting the organization.
He has advised senior executives of leading global institutions on several strategic engagements, assessing the organizations business strategies, people, process and technology capabilities, identifying key client business issues, determining client needs, validating analysis and developing recommendations for the client in the context of the overall business strategy. He has extensively used Lean Six-Sigma and ITIL methodologies to analyze, improve and redesign solutions across business and IT process areas.
Sumit is an MBA from Indian School of Business and participated in a student exchange program with Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University. He is also a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (ASQ), Dell Certified Project Management Professional and Trained in ITIL v3.
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.