The ADA joined more than a hundred other trade associations in asking the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and the House Small Business Committee to ease the forgiveness process for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans under $150,000 in a recent letter to the leadership of those committees.
Representing thousands of small businesses, banks, credit unions, financial institutions, and employees, including dental practices, the coalition expressed its support of S. 4117, the Paycheck Protection Program Small Business Forgiveness Act.
“This bipartisan legislation would ensure our nation’s small business owners can focus their time, energy, and resources back into their business and communities instead of allocating significant time and resources into completing complex forgiveness forms,” the letter said.
The legislation would enable PPP participants to complete a simple, one-page document to have loans of less than $150,000 forgiven. PPP loans of $150,000 and less account for 86% of all PPP recipients but less than 27% of loan dollars, the coalition said. Expediting the forgiveness process would save more than $7 billion and hours of paperwork, the coalition added.
AQN Strategies expects the combined resource requirements of operators’ time and/or third-party expenses to represent an effective cost of $2,000 to $4,000 for each business that applies for forgiveness, requiring 20 to 100 hours of focused time from key leaders in these businesses.
“With an average loan size of less than $19,000 for the smallest 60% of loans, this estimate would represent 10% to 20% of the loan amount itself, which is otherwise intended to support payroll, rent, and other obligations necessary to keep businesses alive and ready to restart,” the letter said.
The AQN Strategies analysis also suggests that the cost to businesses and lenders would be lower than the cost for the government to auto-forgive loans.
“Small businesses and their employees are the backbone of our nation’s economy and communities. Their time and resources would be better focused on getting the economy safely back up and running, not processing burdensome paperwork,” the letter said.
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