4Thought Blog

Late yesterday, the Department of Treasury released the first information on the SBA loan program related to the CARES Act.

We have promised to keep you updated as things take place. We understand from SBA lenders that there is still a lot of work to do and guidance needed from the Dept of Treasury.

On our end, we are actively monitoring, meeting and reviewing all of this information and commit to being ready to advise and guide you through this process.

The massive $2 trillion federal stimulus package, referred to as the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aide, Relief, and Economic Security Act), was signed by the President on Friday. Along with a slew of tax provisions, the Act includes a major new loan initiative for small businesses.

Included in the CARES Act, the small business initiative – called the Keeping American Workers Paid and Employed Act – will provide $377 billion to help prevent workers from losing their jobs and small businesses from going under due to economic losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Act includes a Paycheck Protection Program, where businesses will receive loans meant to help support payroll during the period February 15, 2020 through June 30, 2020 through 100 percent federally guaranteed loans if they maintain their payroll during this emergency.

Article written by Michael Burcham, an Executive Partner with Shore Capital Partners and teaches at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University.

These are unprecedented times. There is no playbook for what to do in such a crisis, yet leaders must step up now and guide our communities and businesses as we face some of life’s most demanding challenges.

These challenges may include large quarantine areas, limited access to essential services, and medical shortages for those who fall ill to this virus. Any one of these can also create paralyzing fear.

As the leader, you cannot always control the environment you find yourself. But you can always control your response, your attitude, your behavior, your words and actions. You can always choose to be proactive rather than paralyzed.

The impact of the novel coronavirus on businesses has started and it’s expected to last for weeks, if not months.

Those in the hospitality and entertainment industries are being hardest hit currently with some mandated shutdowns or new capacity rules, but it’s likely to touch just about every industry, considering the effects of supply chain operations, potential expanded shutdowns and rippling effects leading to a likely economic slowdown.

We’re closely monitoring the situation in Washington, D.C. and the states of our business clients, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

We’re now a month into 2020. The holiday season is fully behind us and now is the time to enact your plan for the year ahead.

Along with a new year comes new payroll rules. Here are five highlights:

Significant Revisions have been Made to Form W-4

The IRS redesigned Form W-4, beginning with the 2020 tax year. The form was revised to take into account changes from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That law suspended personal exemptions and substantially increased the standard deduction.

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act was mainly intended to help individuals save more for retirement.

But the new law also contains provisions that help simplify the administration of retirement plans for employers and allow more employees to participate in 401(k) plans. Here are some provisions that may affect business owners.

What is the "regular rate of pay" for a nonexempt employee? The answer is needed when calculating hourly overtime wages, which must exceed base wages by 50%.

New regulations from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) that take effect January 15 update the definition of "regular rate of pay" to guide your overtime pay calculations.

There’s some welcome news for businesses that use GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) for their financial statements. There is now a year delay on implementing fairly cumbersome new lease accounting standards.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) voted last month to delay ASC 842 Leases, a standard requiring the capitalization and debt of virtually all leases on the balance sheet. The new standard was supposed to take affect for private businesses and other non-public entities for fiscal years starting after Dec. 15, 2019. Now the new standard will take affect for fiscal years starting after Dec. 15, 2020.

The U.S. Department of Labor has issued the long-anticipated final version of its overtime eligibility rules. The changes will take effect on January 1, 2020.

As a result, the DOL estimates that 1.3 million workers will be newly eligible for overtime pay. Are any of them on your payroll? Read on to find out.