01/05/2021

January Advisory Council Meetings with Special Presentation on COVID-19 Legislation

Our upcoming January council meetings will be focused on the latest COVID relief legislation and how it will impact our members. Jeff Smith, from GMA’s legal counsel Fisher & Phillips will cover the bipartisan approved package that includes additional support for small businesses, tax deductions for PPP expenses, a simplified loan forgiveness process, additional funding for EIDL grants, and much more.

The dates are as follows:

Northern Ohio Region – January 14^th, starting at 2:00 pm

Central Ohio Region – January 21^st, starting at 10:00 am

Southern Ohio & Northern Kentucky Region – January 28^th, starting at 10:00 am

The meetings (Zoom), will start with a brief Regional Council meeting including an update of recent activities and news followed by a 45-minute presentation by Jeff Smith and friends from Fisher & Phillips on the new legislation. The entire meeting will last approximately an hour.

Although these are regional council meetings, they are open to all members and active prospects from any part of our overall territory. This is so any members wanting the information sooner than their scheduled regional meeting can get it as soon as possible, starting this Thursday.

Please contact Kelley Grooms at kgrooms@graphicmedia.org to register.

Below is an article that discusses several important parts of the PPP.

2020 Year-End COVID Relief Legislation: Paycheck Protection Program Summary

Source: Lisbeth Lyons, PRINTING United Alliance, January 4, 2020

New year; new PPP. In the waning days of 2020 (Sunday, December 27, to be exact), President Trump signed HR 133, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, a combination COVID-19 stimulus/relief and omnibus government funding bill passed by the House and Senate on December 21, 2020. The Act provides approximately $900 billion to bolster the U.S. economy amid the continued spread of COVID-19. A key component of the Act is an additional $284 billion funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). PPP has also been extended through March 31, 2021.

• Eligibility: Companies with 300 or fewer employees that can demonstrate a loss in excess of 25% of gross receipts in any quarter during 2020 as compared to the same quarter in 2019. Special eligibility is set-aside to support first- and second-time PPP borrowers with 10 or fewer employees, along with small business in economically distressed areas. 
• Expansion: Expands PPP eligibility to included local newspapers and TV and 501(c)(6) non-profits, including tourism promotion organizations and local chambers of commerce, among other entities. 
• Amount: Establishes a maximum loan size of 2.5 times average monthly payroll costs, up to $2 million. Provides the ability for a PPP borrower to request an increase in their first-draw PPP loan amount in the event they returned any or all of their first-draw PPP loan or did not accept the full first-draw PPP loan amount.
• Forgiveness: Borrowers receive full loan forgiveness if they spend at least 60% of their PPP loan on payroll costs over a time period of their choosing between 8 to 24 weeks. Removes the requirement that the amount of a borrower’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Advance Grant be deducted from PPP forgiveness.
• Simplification: The forgiveness process is simplified for loans of $150,000 or less.

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