The federal CARES Act provided a variety of financial tools that independent operators could take advantage of during this time of financial uncertainty. One of those is the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). For those who successfully secured a PPP loan, the Department of the Treasury and Small Business Administration released the application for PPP loan forgiveness on May 15, 2020. The two agencies also plan to issue new guidelines on loan forgiveness in the coming days that may also include some technical changes to the PPP.
However, there is also a push for more general fixes to the PPP that could increase flexibility for how the loan can be used. As a reminder, borrowers currently must use 75% of the loan on payroll to be eligible for loan forgiveness. The discussion of changes to the PPP comes amid a decreasing demand for the loans.