Issue brief ⁠— partnerships in Paycheck Protection Program applications

Tonda Rush

May 20, 2020

The Small Business Administration has altered the application opportunities for small businesses structured as partnerships if they completed their loan applications prior to April 14.

As of that date, owners in businesses set up as partnerships were instructed not to submit applications as self-employed individuals but to add their compensation (up to $100,000 annually) to the payroll portion of their PPP calculations. But some businesses had already applied for their loans so may have missed the opportunity to add in the partners’ compensation to the loan basis.

Although PPP has a strict rule that no business can apply for a loan twice and that all proceeds in a single loan must be distributed at the same time, SBA this week altered that rule only for businesses that filed for their loans before they were aware of the partnership ruling. Newspaper owners who applied prior to April 14 and who did not include the partners’ compensation in their loan calculations are allowed to go back to lenders for a one time increase.

Here is the new ruling to show lenders and accountants: https://nna.org/pub/doc/adding-to-PPP-loans.pdf