On December 3, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected, without analysis, the Biden administration’s request to expedite the briefing schedule on the issue of whether to dissolve an injunction from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which stayed enforcement of Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s vaccine Emergency
By Andy Smetana and Teri Lindquist
The Small Business Administration (SBA) recently released a flurry of new materials implementing changes to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). These materials provide clarifications and updates, but also introduce new changes that borrowers should note when applying for loan forgiveness, a loan increase, or a “second draw” PPP loan.
By: Allan E. Low and Anne Li
Update: This article was updated on January 19, 2021, to include that the commercial eviction moratorium went into effect on January 11, 2021. The bullet points featuring the four tiers of the commercial tenants, created by the Board Ordinance, were also updated to include that each tier’s full-time employee count is as of November 1, 2020.
On December 1, 2020, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a commercial eviction moratorium ordinance (the Board Ordinance), which Board Ordinance came into effect on January 11, 2021. When the Board Ordinance became effective, the mayor’s previous executive orders which impose a moratorium on commercial evictions (the Mayor’s Moratorium) terminated.
Continue Reading San Francisco Board of Supervisors Enacts a New Commercial Eviction Moratorium Ordinance
The latest COVID-19 relief legislation provided some additional aid and clarity for a select group of debtors and left many other questions unanswered. While most of the attention was directed to restarting the PPP payments and other benefits to individuals, the law makes changes to the Bankruptcy Code as well. Small
By Maggie Hayes and Cris Jones
The IRS has issued its annual employee benefit plan limitations for 2021. Key changes, also highlighted in the chart below, include the following:
Continue Reading 2021 IRS Annual Employee Benefit Plan Limit Updates
By Calvin Keith and Edward Choi
Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued a temporary rule in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that went into effect on November 16, 2020, although many of the rule’s requirements have a later effective date.
The rule includes a mask mandate, sanitation protocols, a required poster, a
Several decisions and numerous pending motions filed during the last few weeks have transitioned the litigation over COVID-19 Business-Interruption (BI) claims from what seemed like a preliminary event, namely the quarrel over whether COVID-19 contamination is property damage, to what may well turn out to be the main event: the meaning of
By Rich Peterson, Wendy Moore, and Minkeun Woo
In response to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, U.S. Congress, the executive branch, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have taken several actions intended to provide immediate relief to taxpayers. In prior updates, we summarized some of the actions taken in the last several months, including the tax provisions contained in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act).
Continue Reading Summary of Notice 2020-65: Deferral of Employee’s Portion of Social Security Taxes
By Andrew Smetana, Wendy Moore, and Sean Apfelbaum
In its latest interim final rule (IFR #24) providing guidance under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the Small Business Administration (SBA) provided clarification on two topics impacting borrowers that are preparing to apply for loan forgiveness and, in doing so, created new limitations on PPP loan forgiveness. A summary of this latest guidance follows.
Compensation Limits for Owner-Employees
The new guidance will help some small business owner-employees understand when their compensation is subject to special limits with respect to PPP loan forgiveness. As discussed in our prior client alert (see here), the SBA announced through FAQs that special limits apply with respect to loan forgiveness for loan proceeds used to pay compensation to owner-employees. These owner-employee restrictions impose both a lower cash compensation limit on owner-employees of borrowers who use the 24-week “covered period” for PPP loan forgiveness and certain categorical restrictions that differ from the treatment for ordinary employees. However, prior guidance did not specify any ownership threshold for these compensation limits, allowing speculation as to whether these limits would apply to any business owner, only owners of more than 20% of the business, or some other category of business owners. The new guidance provides as follows:
Continue Reading SBA Provides Additional Guidance on PPP Loan Forgiveness for Owner-Employees and Landlords or Sublandlords
Misinformation is rampant in our current COVID-19 world. On this episode, Perkins Coie partners Ann Marie Painter and Jill B. Louis are joined by Carolee Estelle, M.D., an infectious disease specialist at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas, who provides some straight answers about the COVID-19 virus, what we know