The IRS recently announced per diem rates that can be used to substantiate the amount of business expenses incurred for travel away from home on or after October 1, 2020. Employers using these rates to set per diem allowances can treat the amount of certain categories of travel expenses as substantiated without requiring that employees prove the actual amount spent. However, employees must still substantiate the time, place and business purposes of their travel expenses.
Many employers have been forced to implement some form of workforce reduction in order to continue operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. While furloughs and layoffs have a significant and immediate impact on a company’s operations, plan sponsors also need to understand the longer-term effects that workforce reductions may have on participants’ benefits and retirement accounts.
Although many businesses have had to reduce their workforces because of the COVID-19 pandemic, others are still hiring, or may start bringing on new employees in the weeks or months ahead. A thoughtful onboarding program has become more important than ever in today’s anxious environment of safety concerns and compliance challenges.
With the extended PPP loan application deadline behind us, many borrowers are anxious to start their loan forgiveness application to ensure that their loan funds are forgiven. Currently, borrowers have until 10 months after the end of the loan’s covered period to apply for forgiveness. At that point, if forgiveness forms have not been submitted, any borrowed funds officially become a loan that needs to be repaid.
The Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced that it has closed its Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Advance program after granting the entirety of its $20 billion in emergency funding to nearly 6 million small businesses, including non-profit organizations, sole proprietors, and independent contractors impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.