Oh, no, not again…

Even when our government wants to help small businesses, they seem to fall all over themselves.

Like letting all these bigger companies swipe the bulk of the funds from the PPP loan program. Sure, many of them were forcibly shamed to return the funds, but still many of those “official” small businesses (including government contractors that had no pandemic effects) and franchisees still ate up the money.

Then, there was the discussion to make the use of the funds taxable- even though forgiven.  (Congress fixed that little problem.  The funds obtained via the PPP are not taxable income.)

Of course, the forgiveness part of the program took forever.  (Maybe I should change the tense of the verb to the present- takes forever, since many haven’t yet received their absolution.) To be honest, at least ½ of those problems were caused by the banks.  Who wanted to do as little as possible to garner their ‘finders’ fee for being the loan middleman.

But, now, still, many firms are finding validation errors blockading their forgiveness applications.  (Wouldn’t you be surprised to find out that the SBA considered you to be a criminal?  Must be how Immigration deals with all the ‘criminals’ they want to deport.)

Among other issues?  The system would not one apply for the second loan if the first one was not already forgiven. (The rules stated one could do so as long as the applicant felt assured that forgiveness was imminent.)  Or, they were blocked because somewhere there was a record that the first loan was under review (even if that were not true).

So, finally, the SBA is letting lenders be proponents for us small guys, accepting our documents and uploading them to the feds to facilitate forgiveness.  (I’m not quite so sure the banks will do so- unless one got the loan from a community bank, one that cares for its small business customers.)

Please don’t wait to get you shot at the apple.  At least 3/8 of the funds are already gone, helping about 1.4 million of us small businesses. 82% of those loans were for less than $ 100K (which means monthly payroll of much less than $ 40K.  (The second shot program finally does check for franchisees, “big” small companies, and ensures that the pandemic HAS hurt your business before you can get any funds.)

Remember, the loans are forgivable and NOT taxable.  And, for those with smaller loans, the application for forgiveness is a breeze.  (Notice I did not say acceptance of the application…)

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