Author: Leon Clinton

Are you one of the millions of businesses that have an outstanding non-disaster Small Business Administration (SBA) loan? These include: 

• 7(a) loans: general small business loans of up to $5 million,
• 504 loans: loans of up to $5.5 million to provide financing for major fixed assets such as equipment or real estate, and
• microloans: short-term loans of up to $50,000 for small businesses.

If so, you have already benefited, or soon will benefit, from a little-known provision included in the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Congress appropriated $17 billion so that the SBA could provide a temporary loan payment subsidy to businesses with these non-disaster SBA loans. Under this provision, the SBA automatically makes six monthly loan payments on behalf of borrowers. There is no need to file an application.

Are the SBA loan subsidies taxable income to you?

Unfortunately, the CARES Act is silent on this subject and the IRS has yet to issue any guidance on this particular loan subsidy program. In the past, the IRS advised that similar loan payments were includible in income by the taxpayer-borrower.

It’s unclear whether the IRS will follow this prior guidance.

The IRS could instead conclude that these loan subsidies are not taxable under the general welfare exclusion. The general welfare exclusion has often been used to exempt from tax SBA disaster payments made to individual taxpayers. The exclusion ordinarily does not apply to payments to business. But the IRS could make an exception due to the extraordinary nature of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s also possible that Congress will act to make the SBA loan payments tax-free. This could be done in a future stimulus bill.

Right now, the prudent course is to assume that the SBA loan subsidies are taxable income and plan accordingly. 

If you have any further questions or need my assistance, please call me on my direct line at 408-778-9651.

• By Leon Clinton
• December 10, 2020

Have you established a 105-HRA, Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangement (QSEHRA), or Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA) to reimburse your employees for medical expenses?

If so, congratulations! These HRAs are a great way to pay your employees’ medical expenses and obtain a tax deduction.

But all three types of HRAs come with a pesky IRS filing requirement: Each year, you must pay a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) fee that is used to help support the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

The fee is small—currently, $2.54 times the “average number of lives covered” by your HRA during the previous plan year. There are various ways to calculate the number of lives covered.

You must pay the fee by filing Form 720 with the IRS by July 31 of the calendar year following the end of your plan year. 

Paying the PCORI fee is a bit of a nuisance. But on the plus side, the fee is tax deductible.

If you need my assistance or would simply like to discuss HRAs, please call me on my direct line at 408-778-9651.

• By Leon Clinton
• December 5, 2020

Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your year-end tax planning. 

If you don’t, you could end up with a big fat $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review three year-end moves that (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction at the same time.

First Things First

If your taxable income is above $163,300 (or $326,600 on a joint return), then your type of business, wages paid, and property can reduce and/or eliminate your Section 199A tax deduction.

If your deduction amount is less than 20 percent of your qualified business income (QBI), then consider using one or more of the strategies described below to increase your Section 199A deduction.

Strategy 1: Harvest Capital Losses

Capital gains add to your taxable income, which is the income that 

• determines your eligibility for the Section 199A tax deduction,
• sets the upper limit (ceiling) on the amount of your Section 199A tax deduction, and
• establishes when you need wages and or property to obtain your maximum deductions.

If the capital gains are hurting your Section 199A deduction, you have time before the end of the year to harvest capital losses to offset those harmful gains.

Strategy 2: Make Charitable Contributions

Since the Section 199A deduction uses taxable income for its thresholds, you can use itemized deductions to reduce and/or eliminate threshold problems and increase your Section 199A deduction.

Charitable contribution deductions are the easiest way to increase your itemized deductions before the end of the year (assuming you already itemize).

Strategy 3: Buy Business Assets

Thanks to 100 percent bonus depreciation and Section 179 expensing, you can write off the entire cost of most assets you buy and place in service before December 31, 2020.

This can help your Section 199A deduction in two ways:

1. The big asset purchase and write-off can reduce your taxable income and increase your Section 199A deduction when it can get your taxable income under the threshold.
2. The big asset purchase and write-off can contribute to an increased Section 199A deduction if your Section 199A deduction currently uses the calculation that includes the 2.5 percent of unadjusted basis in your business’s qualified property. In this scenario, your asset purchases increase your qualified property, which in turn increases the deduction you already depend on.

This can get confusing. If you would like my help, please call me on my direct line at 408-778-9651.

• By Leon Clinton
• December 2, 2020