The AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) is urging for congress to pass a new, highly targeted version of the Paycheck Protection Program that was part of the CARES Act passed in March. $134 Billion remained untapped when the original PPP program stopped accepting applications on August 8th. While additional funding for small businesses remains a popular bipartisan issue, other areas such as Federal aid for state and local governments and the amount of unemployment assistance remain sticking points to getting a new deal done.
Additional efforts of the AICPA include requesting that congress specify to the IRS that expenses paid for with PPP money be tax deductible, which was the original intent of congress (currently any expenses paid with PPP money is not tax deductible). As well as removing the tax hurdles that remote work brings such as: workers compensation insurance, unemployment, state withholding and state income tax that are required by many states, along with all of the administrative work required to make sure that companies are following each states laws.
With the democrat run house in talks about passing a $2.4 trillion dollar aid package (down from $3.4 trillion) and the republican led White House signifying that it would accept a $1.5 trillion dollar aid package (the republican led senate package went as low as $300 billion a few weeks ago), there may be some hope in a compromise that could lead to the changes the AICPA is advocating for before the end of the year.
Edit 9-29-20: House leader Nancy Pelosi has, instead of working on the $1.5 trillion dollar bipartisan effort pushed by the Problem Solvers Caucus, opted on working on a version of the $3.4 trillion Heroes Act that reduces the price of the bill to $2.2 trillion by changing the timelines of some of the funding. The act would not be changed significantly and still has many provisions that many Republicans lawmakers find untenable.