Coronavirus Relief

As part of the 5593 pages of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, Congress has included the Coronavirus Response & Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021. (The Act). The Act is a much anticipated follow up to the CARES Act passed in March. It includes everything from fisheries disaster assistance to a second round of stimulus checks for most Americans. We have gathered a brief list of the provisions we find most pertinent to our community. 

Individuals

• Extends federal pandemic unemployment assistance
  • $300/week benefit (reduced from the original $600)
  • Extended from December 31, 2020 to March 14, 2021
  • Maximum number of weeks of standard unemployment benefits increased from 39 to 50
  • Increased maximum number of pandemic assistance weeks from 13 to 24
• $600 payments to most Americans as early as next week according to Secretary of Treasury Mnuchin
  • Same AGI thresholds as the CARES Act but only for tax year 2019
  • If you are not required to file a tax return you will be able to receive a payment if you otherwise qualify

Businesses

• Fisheries Disaster Assistance – doubles the original amount dedicated to Section 12005 of the CARES Act. Alaska was originally allotted $50 million, none of which has been distributed
• PPP Loans that are forgiven are NOT included in income and expenses that the money paid for IS deductible as originally intended by the CARES Act
• Emergency Financial Grants made by most institutions for education are NOT includable in income
• EIDL Advances are not includable in income & deductions are allowable
• PPP 2
  • Additional eligible expenses
    • Operations expenditures for software or cloud services, accounting & HR
    • Property damage
    • Supplier costs
    • Worker protection expenditures
  • Timeframe: 8 or 24 weeks
  • Simplified forgiveness application for those loans under $150,000
  • Eligibility
    • Must show a 25% reduction in gross sales for any quarter in 2020 compared with the same quarter in 2019
    • Maximum loan amount is determined the same as previous PPP was
• Additional EIDL Advance Amount
  • Entities that received an EIDL advance of less than $10,000 may be eligible for the difference if they had reduced revenue for any 8-week   after March of 2020 with the comparable 8-week period in 2019 or immediately prior to the declared disaster in 2020
  • EIDL loan program extended to 3/31/2021
• EIDL Advance amounts deducted from PPP forgiveness amounts to be reimbursed to businesses

*This list is not comprehensive as the text was released 2 hours ago, is not officially law, and is almost 6,000 pages 😉