US Politics and Economics - They CARES a Lot!

Oh definitely. I am sure all the 1% and their lawyers and their accountants are combing through that bill looking for exploitable loopholes and ways to make money / avoid taxes.

The SBA disaster loan portal crashed last week.

Now they have a new loan application system.

my brain is mushy with details / issues about EIDL loans and PPP loans ... maybe this will be another of my threads where it's just me posting until I got bored / distracted and abandon it

regarding unemployment, I get why tacking the federal unemployment onto the existing state infrastructure was done (because Feds building something new in a week or two, given their ineptitude = lol), but given how overloaded individual state unemployment lines/websites are, I'm afraid a lot of people aren't going to even get state unemployment, much less the $600 fed

and those gig workers/contractors have to wait longer for the feds/states to come up with a good system.

California is still figuring out how to implement the self-employed UI benefit system. ... it's a mess.

The PPP loans are also a mess for the self-employed who are supposed to be able to get them based on net earnings from self-employment. However, there isn't official final guidance as to how the "payroll" forgiveness works for self-employed, so the banks who are processing the loans are waiting for that final guidance. There are also issues about how much banks can lend because there are existing rules about that based on the bank's assets. So I'm on a bunch of lists and groups for non-profit finance people as well as accountants, and most of the threads are: "has anyone got any money yet?" "is this bank's system working yet?" "is this bank taking loan applications again?" ... Basically there are a lot of people in industries where they are used to being told what to do with pages and pages of technical guidance about specific situations, and those things currently don't exist, and no one wants to fuck up, so most everything is on hold, waiting for clarification and guidance.

The EIDL loan thing, where someone the other day said, "they are only giving out $1000 per employee" in contradiction to everything promoted, put in law and guidance ... and now everyone who heard/read that is like "WTF???" and the SBA is kinda walking it back and saying, "uh, we need to get our shit together."

friends in NY were talking about the UI for self-employed people there, and it seemed to involve "faxing" things ...

also, if you are an employer and want an advance on the paid leave credit for employees, they have a form for that ... but you have to fax it to the IRS

I am sure at the time, people in government thought, it would be more efficient to have the banks, the SBA, the state unemployment agencies et al. manage the systems for paying people who now don't have money because of Covid -- but all the other countries that just sent money directly to individual people -- that system is looking pretty effective in comparison rn

Also -- maybe someone here knows more about this -- what about unemployment for people whose jobs are in states other than where they live? Do NJ residents who work in NY file in NJ or NY?

hmm, never thought about that.

re: $1000/employee, I got in an argument with another 'small business owner' because I don't fault the SBA for that really. It was stupidly underfunded - if the SBA said "$10k per applicant until we run out of money" they would have gotten through like 5% of applicants and pitchforks would have been hoisted for that too.

it's helping my friend's business, but he fortunately has his family working there and maybe 2-3 other employees, so not many to pay. anybody with even a moderate employee base is gonna struggle w/ that

i was only half-joking when I said bank account balances should be reset and everybody should start with like $50,000 in their bank account and businesses should all start over with capital.

also 1 in every 3 politicians should be bronzed while they're alive

I applied for the EIDL grant on Friday, a fairly straightforward online application. I assume I'll get a pro-rated portion of $10K based on my meager income. One problem I have is that my main work client is doggedly going forward with the niche magazine I produce for her, so I guess I can't apply for independent contractor unemployment? Ad sales are in the toilet and my billing is tied to ad pages -- I'm pretty sure I could make more from unemployment than I'll make working on the tiny magazines we'll have for the next few months.

i'm in a weird spot because i was employed late 2018 to 2019 then a contract employee for a start-up (should have been on their payroll) that technically folded a few weeks before the rona really started to shut things down. so i'm a little worried i'm going to fall through the cracks. so far it looks like i'm going to get a small amount of state unemployment and the 1200 but nothing's come through yet. i applied for eidl or whichever one doesn't go through local lenders, haven't heard anything.

i also started the job search process before rona really hit so i had interviews lined up when things got bad. keeping my fingers crossed for one that i should hear back about this week.

if the stimulus check shows up in my account this week i'm paying bills of course but distantly considering a road trip to nevada to get w33d lol.

xp - you can apply and maybe just get reduced benefits? I know you aren't in CA, so maybe the rules are different in your state, but here, people don't have to be completely unemployed in order to collect UI benefits. ... there are also a bunch of people who have a mix of employee income and self-employment income who are kinda like, "Uhhhhh what do i do?"

map: you could apply for a PPP loan as a self-employed person based on your earnings from that startup? It would depend on how much you earned (in terms of whether it's worth it), and whether you think you will get hired somewhere else soon (as an employee). You would probably need to prepare/file your 2019 tax return for that loan program.

thanks for the info!

This has kinda been what I have spent the past week doing tbh ... I think in one of the groups I'm in, someone mentioned that there was a bank with branches in UT that was actually doing a good job with PPP loans (as opposed to like 90% of all the other banks)

xp - ditto, thanks sarahell -- I will check and see if reduced benefit is possible. I'm definitely underemployed right now.

Also, I think we are starting to see the "fintech" sector enter the PPP loan market. A bunch of people who are self-employed don't have business bank accounts and so banks have kinda been telling them to fuck off. So my sense is, if you have a "business" relationship with a company like PayPal or something like that ... maybe start looking there as opposed to waiting for the likes of Chase and Bank of America to get to you idk

US Bank and Wells Fargo getting a lot of complaints about not even taking applications

The thing is: this is free money from the government for the loan processors, and their agents. The loans are 100% guaranteed. So, in the bill, it allows for 3rd party agents to apply for loans on behalf of clients and get a percentage of the loan paid to them (basically like real estate people with mortgages) ... in one of the webinars I "attended" the presenter (a CPA) spent a good 5-10 minutes talking about the money-making potential for accountants of being PPP loan agents for their accounting and tax clients.

I've gotten notifications from Square, Quickbooks and Paypal (and maybe Shopify) about trying to get in on the PPP action.

Based on one EIDL rumor (gross revenue minus COGS) we'd be able to borrow $110k, which is close to the amount of revenue that's going to be lost for closing 6-8 weeks and god only knows what the 'specialty retail' market is going to look like if/when we get to reopen.

Got my doubts that's a real number, I'm prepared to be fucked in general.

the Gross Revenue minus COGS = benchmark revenue from which the loan is calculated isn't a rumor, that's the way they are calculating it ... unless the rumor is that they won't actually loan people the amount they are eligible for because there is too little money?

A lot of service business people were thoroughly confused about the COGS question ... and were like, "can I put zero?" "I don't know what that is, what do I put there?" ... Yes, zero, is actually what you would put there, and it won't reduce your loan amount.

new interim final rule about PPP loans for self-employed people with no employees

https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Interim-Final-Rule-Additional-Eligibility-Criteria-and-Requirements-for-Certain-Pledges-of-Loans.pdf

Oh, I just called it a rumor because I hadn’t seen it confirmed anywhere. If that’s the actual loan amount it might actually save my “career.”

Meanwhile almost everyone who has applied for an EIDL got an email either last night or today saying, "you know how we were gonna give you $10k advances? well, we're limiting that to $1k per employee ... oops! ... have you heard about the PPP loan? Try applying for that!"

AND the California EDD has a coronavirus benefits page that is basically "coming soon: the benefits promised to out of work self-employed people!" ... meanwhile they are passive-aggressively updating weekly stats of unemployment claims processed for regular workers

Got the $10k advance today for the EIDL but Chase has done fuck-all with the PPP. Also the SBA didn't contact us at all before the advance but pulled a credit report on Monday.

Based on what I've heard from other people, the businesses / orgs that have gotten PPP loans so far (including one of my clients that I did all the paperwork for) -- have smaller, regional banks. Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo et al. are taking longer.

We got the PPP loan approval Monday night, I signed and completed the authorization forms like an hour later, and we are waiting on money.

i'm kicking myself in the face for sinking into sadness rather than filling all this stuff out. Anybody got suggestions of reasonable next steps? or am i well and truly shafted?

Several places are still taking PPP applications in expectation of more funding. PayPal was moving apps quickly when they started, QuickBooks is doing it now as well.

The EIDL is moving so slowly it can’t hurt to do the application, I guess?

My Quickbooks PPP application took about 30 seconds because they had all my info.

The non-profit i work for (I am one of two employees) just got our EIDL loan - $2k - and they didn't send me any email or anything, no clue we got the money until I saw the bank deposit. PPP came on the 16th.

The second round of PPP loans is coming through to businesses -- last week and this week, I'm hearing people saying they are getting the money -- it also seems like a lot of people don't understand the rules for loan forgiveness, which aren't that complicated, but still I get the sense that they weren't explained to applicants.

Chase never got past (supposedly) submitting to the SBA, Quickbooks didn't seem to get even that far.

Paypal got it submitted and funded inside of 24 hours.

no one could have known how difficult massive, hyper-accelerated cash benefits programs could be in the hands of an admin whose motto is "just grift baybee"

eh, having a bit of an inside view on this, it's more like having a stupid boss who overpromises results but doesn't do any of the work themself and who has no clue how anything works, and then shifts blame to the subordinates for not delivering on time.

like, when dude became president he wanted to change the tax code so that people/businesses could expense the cost of an entire building. ... like, uh, no ... meanwhile the SBA, the IRS, all the states, the banking industry, and all the people working on the tech side have to create this new benefits system in an exceptionally short period of time. ... So they generate these forms, but have barely any time to test them with all the different scenarios applicants will have.

Here a couple real examples:
1. the PPP application asks for % of ownership of the business. A significant number of applicants are non-profits ... there are no owners. How do you deal with that on the process side as well as the tech side?
2. a business where one of the significant ownership % is owned by a trust. The owners are supposed to enter their tax ID#s and dates of birth -- what is the date of birth of a trust? What if the trust has more than one "owner" ...?

The SBA wasn’t designed for millions of small businesses to apply for multiple programs at once, Congress underfunded both the PPP and EIDL.

I don’t think it would have been much smoother under Obama - not that Republicans would have supported the PPP or EIDL anyway if it was 2014.

i just applied for a business account at my local bank, which is required to apply. I feel like such a fuck-up with this whole process.

definitely the administration that designed and implemented an income-based subsidized health insurance system would not have done any better than an administration that hasn't done any significant national social program ... there is no evidence whatsoever of a greater degree of organization, competence, and realistic communications in the Obama administration, sorry you are being ridiculous

The launch of healthcare.gov was in no way problematic IIRC

Which did not come within weeks of the ACA’s passage.

what I'm saying is, at least they had done something at a large scale that they could, you know, learn lessons from?

Apps for these programs started within days of passage. Nothing about the ACA resembles that situation, the SBA didn’t have 10x the staffing they do today, the legislation would have had the same loopholes to let billionaires in on the PPP and there’s really no evidence the Obama people learned anything over the course of eight years.

Obama could have gotten the $1200 checks out quicker, absolutely.

Apps for these programs started within days of passage.

like the EIDL app that was "down for maintenance" for two days and then ... oops, we've decided we're gonna revamp the system and everyone has to reapply?

the legislation would have had the same loopholes to let billionaires in on the PPP

uh the loopholes weren't really about "billionaires" ... they "accidentally" allowed publicly traded companies (billionaire status not required) and companies that got to count as small businesses because they were in the special class of restaurants and hotels where they allowed them to count each location as a separate business (again, not related to extremely wealthy individuals) -- it's mainly an issue of larger enterprises with greater resources in terms of both relationships with banks/lenders and in terms of knowledgeable staff/consultants who were quickly able to put applications together. This "access" issue also shows up in the disparity between whites and POC businesses getting funding, and I was actually pleasantly surprised that in the second round of funding there was money earmarked for CDFIs.

But if you want to argue based on some lowest common denominator podcast talking points rather than how things actually work ... go for it.

I'm arguing based on being someone who's called the SBA three days a week for the past six weeks because this is of existential importance to me but, you know, go off king. Leftist podcasts are known for their discussion of small business financing.

like the EIDL app that was "down for maintenance" for two days and then ... oops, we've decided we're gonna revamp the system and everyone has to reapply?

Yes. A nationwide disaster putting millions of small businesses in the pool for loan applications was unprecedented and the process for the EIDL and PPP launched in days from the majority of the country declaring an emergency en masse.

healthcare.gov launched three years after the ACA passed and it was still a complete clusterfuck. Still is, in many ways.

uh the loopholes weren't really about "billionaires" ... they "accidentally" allowed publicly traded companies [...] it's mainly an issue of larger enterprises with greater resources in terms of both relationships with banks/lenders and in terms of knowledgeable staff/consultants who were quickly able to put applications together.

There's zero reason to believe that the last six weeks of SBA hell would have been any different under Obama - this is the one part of the whole pandemic that doesn't fall directly on Trump's head and the SBA has handled it all far more successfully than I think most should have expected.

I've got a loan application in with a People Fund setup regionally and it's been vastly more of a PITA than the EIDL or PPP have been.

There's zero reason to believe that the last six weeks of SBA hell would have been any different under Obama - this is the one part of the whole pandemic that doesn't fall directly on Trump's head

the part where the Trump administration assured people that they would get funded RIGHT AWAY when, in fact, it took a lot longer (see also: stimulus checks) -- I feel like it's not a stretch to say, that can be blamed on Trump?

No, it's not - the advance grant of $10k in three days was part of the legislation co-written by the Democrats and was not funded to allow that to actually happen for all the millions of applicants. It wasn't just Trump saying funds would come RIGHT AWAY it was the Democrats as well.

I take it the "re-opening" of the country is now allowing people to move goalposts now? Because that's what you're doing

What?

Here's what I said that you apparently took issue with:
"I don’t think it would have been much smoother under Obama - not that Republicans would have supported the PPP or EIDL anyway if it was 2014."

That's it. "Wouldn't have been much smoother." Not "Trump is doing a flawless job." The Democrats have played just as much of a role in the PPP and EIDL legislation as Trump or the Republicans. The one vaguely similar experience we had with a rollout of millions of applications for a program under Obama was just as much of a disaster, with three years to build the program and not in the midst of a pandemic.

"Obama was smart and good" doesn't mean the SBA would have magically been able to handle an unprecedented avalanche of applications in days.

ayoooooo my PPP loan went through! Used Paypal to get it, took less than a week!

To name the ayes: Bennet, Blum., Booker, Cardin, Carper, Casey, Coons, Cortez M., Duckworth, Feinstein, Gillibr., Harris, Hassan, Jones, Kaine, King, Klobuchar, Leahy, Manchin, Menendez, Murphy, Peters, Reed, Rosen, Schumer, Shaheen, Sinema, Smith, Stabe., Van H., Whiteh., Warner https://t.co/Btul3MoPG4

— Taniel (@Taniel) May 15, 2020

Both my senators Wyden and Merkley voted against. No complaints against them on that score.

both of mine voted for it -- no surprise -- probably there's plenty of tech $$ to be made by California companies.

also -- I learned last weekend while talking to my parents on Mother's Day (they live in California) that they both voted for Klobuchar in the primary -- it was like discovering the existence of a rare insect in my own backyard. ... My mom has the pro-privacy instincts of a libertarian, so idk if she's gonna be so happy with Klobuchar after this.

Has anyone here who's made an EIDL application actually gotten $$? I lost my application number so if I follow up on it I can't reference my application.

only ppp, not eidl for me

FYI H.R.7010 - Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7010/text

xp - yep!!! did you get a recent email from sba.gov about the loan being awarded/processed? ... It has the number in the email.

the email is from disastercustomerserv✧✧✧@s✧✧.g✧✧ and will have the application number in the subject line ... i submitted my application on the first day (after they re-did the system) and got the loan approval notification on May 24th, and got the money yesterday.

No, the last thing I got from them was May 2nd saying "we're working on it, trust us."

Submitted the night the new application went live (application in the 30k range) and received the loan ~May 20.

Having submitted a bunch of grant forms (LISC, Facebook, Chamber of Commerce, etc.) and received none of them, I kind of wonder what it takes to get chosen by any of them. One (Texas Womens University) seemed very horny for startup tech friendly bullshit vs. boring brick and mortar, kind of wonder if that's the key.

So I should apply for EIDL all over again, y/n? Also, do I have to apply for a PPP loan if all I want is EIDL grant money?

Have you called into the SBA? I think I've seen people getting looked up by company name/EIN without the app number.

you can't submit a new application for EIDL. Unless you're in farming (they say they are currently only taking applications for agricultural business) -- but if you've applied already, I would wait and/or call the SBA.

As far as grant stuff goes ... some stuff is just regional and funder specific. I've done grant-writing for non-profits (mostly art and music stuff) for 15 years, and a lot of it hinges on the funder's interests, goals, what the program is for, etc. And there are definitely trends, and it is frustrating when what you do isn't "trending" ...

A lot of the CFDI orgs (I forget the acronym, but basically non-profit development and lending entities, like LISC) are focused on businesses led by marginalized ppl and/or serving marginalized communities. Basically, they assume (and often rightly so) that businesses owned by white people have more access to capital. My familiarity with LISC is in the context of affordable housing btw

Mnuchin keeping everything secret....

assmnuch

ok I guess THEY were just waiting for me to get pissed off about it, because I got my disastercustomerservice email last night.

Well, I'm not any less confused than before. I clicked through, created my account, and it said I was approved for a loan of $X, an amount quite a bit larger than the $10K EIDL grant amount. Do I have to take out the loan to get the 10K? Is the 10K EIDL money separate from the loan money, or is the first 10K of the PPP loan considered the EIDL grant? There are mechanisms for having the loan forgiven, yes? I confess I'm asking all this here instead of RTFMing because sarahell's posts are clear and the government is opaque.

PPP is separate from EIDL.

Basically, this email is for the "full loan" for which the $10k (had you actually received it) would have been the advance. You can choose a smaller amount to receive as a loan, and not take the full amount. As far as I'm aware, this loan is not eligible for forgiveness but the interest rate is low and you have a long time to repay it.

I guess I should contact someone to see if the EIDL application is still pending or has been declined.

That is your EIDL

yeah it sounds like a lot like the eidl i got. i was declined for a ppp but received the eidl a few weeks ago. qualified because i was doing contract work last year. my new job has been put off for a month pending budget approval so if i don't end up getting that at least i have several months to figure out what the hell i'm gonna do.

We received the grant/advance weeks before the loan, I don't know how it works now that they're getting to more applications. Also the grant was only $1k for single-person businesses for a long while, don't know if that actually changed back to the $10k or not.

The $1k-$10k grant reduces the amount of PPP forgiveness but other than that the two programs are entirely separate.

it didn't change back to the $10k -- they changed it to $1k per employee up to $10k max -- (my org had 2 employees so we got $2k).

I think I got bait-and-switched? I started looking for the mechanisms for getting part or all of this loan forgiven. I thought I was getting a 7(a) loan which is partially or fully forgiveable, and it looks like I got a 7(b) loan which doesn't have any provision for forgiveness... so confused.

The PPP is potentially forgivable.
The grant portion of the EIDL is a grant so forgiveness is irrelevant (but there's interaction with the PPP forgiveness), the rest is not.

Yeah ... the EIDL main loan -- the one with the disastercustomerservice email -- is not forgiveable (at the moment, who the fuck knows what will get changed in the next month or so ... it is a mess), but the terms are very good and the interest rate is quite low. If your alternative was something like "putting everything on credit cards" then you are way better off with the EIDL.

Honestly, I suspect that the gov't will do something like forgive all the loans around say, October, as a ploy to get votes in the election.

yeah also to help distract from the blatant corporate thievery that went on at the same time... "we forgave all of you, it was a hard time for everyone. stop picking on the big guy!"

is it thievery if there is a sign that says "take one" on the purportedly stolen property?

Yeah, I'm not too worried about paying this 10K back, looks like a 30 year term and a pretty small payment. But I had been reading about loans that had full or partial forgiveness and a 1% APR built into the PR blitz, and this is definitely not that.

They made some really messy and stupid tax laws that now have to be reported on forms for tax purposes!!!

Also, there are new PPP loans and a performing arts bailout, kinda

also the EIDL doesn't have to be deducted from the PPP for forgiveness purposes

2nd round PPP seems to be going a lot more smoothly than round 1 ... though idk if first time applicants are having less trouble than those who applied in round 1. They aren't requiring you to have started the round 1 forgiveness process in order to qualify for a second draw.

Next up (unless Congress/Biden enact some other OMG ASAP major program) is the Rental Assistance Program, which isn't perfect by any means, but should definitely help folx out who have months of back rent and are freaking out about possibly having to pay it.

Emergency Rental Assistance Program -- federal guidelines --how you can get the government to pay your back rent to your landlord

https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/ERA-Frequently-Asked-Questions_Pub-2-22-21.pdf

The non-taxable $10k in benefits offsets ~$1k for most people so the bill wound up a couple of thousand worse for most people using UI

this is assuming that everyone getting UI benefits is only in the 10% tax bracket. ... which isn't true. Far from true. There are several other key things at play tax-wise:

1. people getting Obamacare subsidies -- prior to this legislation, the UI benefits counted towards income (means testing) whether one has to potentially repay subsidized health insurance.

2. non-taxability of forgiven PPP loans -- imagine you are a self-employed person whose income dried up because of Covid, but with the new federal benefits, you could actually collect unemployment (for potentially the first time ever) -- so, rather than try and navigate the convoluted banking system of PPP loans with regulations and requirements that weren't terribly user friendly, plus all the news stories about how Cheesecake Factory took all the PPP money -- you figure that getting unemployment rather than a PPP loan to cover your lost income is the best choice for you. ... So back in December, the government decides that the people that got PPP money don't have to pay tax on it ... but you have to pay tax on your unemployment benefits? ... Not really fair.

sorry i am using this thread to respond to posts in the politics thread after the fact because I don't want to be the annoying person bringing shit up from yesterday because I can't keep up with the pace of the thread

This is good! I'm a person who was on UI all of 2020 and also got insurance through the exchange for the first time ever, and my bf got a PPP loan through one of his LLCs and also got insurance so a lot of this is helpful.

thank you!

My accountant/tax person patiently walked me through what I'd done wrong in getting an SBA disaster loan instead of a PPP loan, and steered me the right way for the latter. Funds arrived this morning, w00t. It was the very end of round 1; I don't know if I'll go for another loan in round 2.

to be fair, you applied for a disaster loan at the very beginning, when the PPP loans were still being developed and there was a delay having application forms for self-employed people with no employees. At the time, you either could have done the disaster loan .... or waited ... so, you shouldn't feel like you did something wrong initially.