United States of America - Covid 19 Response Search

1. Spending Measures (Budget Allocations)

• Provide $17 billion in loans and loan guarantees for unspecified “businesses critical to maintaining national security.
• Put $192 billion into hospitals and veterans’ health care.
• Provide $16 billion for the strategic national stockpile of pharmaceutical and medical supplies.
• Provide $25 billion for increased testing.
  https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/PPP--IFRN%20FINAL.pdf [nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com]

2. Tax Measures (Deferral of Payroll Tax Obligations, Extensions of Tax Filing Deadlines)

• Income tax payments delayed to July 15.
• Suspend federal student loan payments through Sept. 30 with no accrual of interest on those loans.
• Delay payroll tax for employers, requiring half of the deferred tax to be paid by the end of 2021 and the other half by the end of 2022.
• Include a tax credit for retaining employees, worth up to 50% of wages paid during the crisis, for businesses forced to suspend operations or that have seen gross receipts fall by 50% from the previous year.
• The CARES Act significantly increases the ability of corporations to utilize NOL carryforwards and carrybacks for 2018, 2019, and 2020. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) enacted at the end of 2017 eliminated net operating loss carrybacks and limited a corporation’s ability to use NOL carryforwards in any given year to 80 percent of taxable income. Section 2303 of the CARES Act temporarily reverses both of those changes by permitting a corporation to carryback NOLs from 2018, 2019 and 2020 for five years.
• Treasury will authorize virtually any bank to be lender.

3. Subsidies to Preserve Jobs, Employee Benefits, Food Assistance

• One-time direct payments of up to $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for couples, with $500 added for every child, based on 2019 tax returns for those who filed them and 2018 information if they have not. The benefit would start to phase out above $75,000 in income for individuals and $150,000 for couples, going away completely at the $99,000 and $198,000 thresholds, respectively.
• Boost unemployment insurance, adding $600 per week for up to four months on top of what beneficiaries normally receive from states. It expands eligibility to self-employed people and independent contractors.
• Ban companies that take government loans from buying back stock until a year after the loan is paid back.
• Bar employees or executives who made at least $425,000 last year from getting a raise.
• Some states like Florida and NY join in the effort to have the coronavirus event covered by certain Business Interruption Insurance policies, retroactive to March . The Bill is limited to insured with fewer than 100 employees. There are obvious Contract Clause issues that will undoubtedly be the subject of court challenges if this Bill ever becomes law.

4. Public Loan Guarantees and Expansion of Loans to Businesses

• Create a $500 billion pool of taxpayer money to make loans, loan guarantees or investments to or in businesses, states and municipalities damaged by the crisis.
• $25 billion in grants to airlines and $4 billion to cargo carriers to be used exclusively to pay employee wages, salaries and benefits, and set aside another $25 billion and $4 billion, respectively, for loans and loan guarantees.
• Give over $680 billion in loans for small businesses to cover salary, wages and benefits, worth 250% of an employer’s monthly payroll, with a maximum loan of $10 million.

5. Student Loan Relief

• All payments on federally held student loans (not commercially held FFELP or private student loans) are suspended through September 30, 2020.
• During the suspension period, interest shall not accrue on federally held loans.
• For purposes of federal loan forgiveness and loan rehabilitation programs, payments will be treated as if they were made for each month during the suspension period.
• Suspended payments must be reported to the credit bureaus as if they were made (thus not reported using forbearance codes).
• An employer may make a payment of principal or interest before January 1, 2021 on any qualified education loan incurred by the employee and exclude that amount from the employee's gross income. The payment may be made to the employee or to the lender.

6. Insolvency Law Relief

• SMALL BUSINESS: Under the new SBRA, Small Business Reorganization Act: a) Increase the threshold for small business eligibility from $2,725,625 to $7,500,000 of debt for one year;
• Amends
  • The definition of current monthly income (CMI) by excluding payments made by the federal government with respect to coronavirus;
  • The definition of disposable income (DI) in consumer reorganization by excluding payments made by the federal government with respect to coronavirus;
• Allows plan of reorganizations already in place to be modified due to material financial hardship caused by coronavirus;
• Extends consumer repayment plans from 5 years to 7 if modified due to coronavirus.