Coronavirus keeps disrupting our life.  Congress has passed laws to help small business people.  The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is one that helps small businesses. What some people don’t know is that you can apply for the PPP loan even if you are self employed, the only employee, a 1099 person, and even a real estate investor in some cases will qualify.  

Last month the PPP loan was extended. You can still apply until August 8^th. The application is easy, once you’ve got your information together.  Your bank will help you apply.

I assume most of you have already applied. If you got your money before June 5^th, you can choose an eight week period or a twenty-four week period as your “covered period.” Most of you are approaching the end of your money. You have spent the money. Now you are going to have to apply for the “loan forgiveness.” The rules for the forgiveness were recently changed.

The new rules say you must spend at least 60% of the money on payroll. The other 40% you could use for utilities, rents, or mortgage interest. In our COVID-19 Economic Relief Tutorial (CERT) program, we show you what you have to do to apply for the forgiveness.  The application has recently been simplified, and it looks easy, but getting the stuff together and knowing what they want is the hard part.

You do not have to wait until the end of your covered period to apply for loan forgiveness.  Once you have spent your money, you can apply for the forgiveness. On the other hand, you have until the end of the year to apply for forgiveness. If you haven’t laid anybody off, you should probably apply as soon as you can.

There are “safe harbors” that you can get into and still get full forgiveness of the loan if you have laid off people or have cut wages. To get to the safe harbors, you might have to wait to apply for the forgiveness.  

I just thought you might like a little update on the PPP. I sure hope life gets back to normal.  I don’t want a new normal. I liked the old normal. I have lived overseas in a lot of diverse places (spent a year on the Afghanistan and Pakistan border in the Sindh Desert for example), and the US is the best country on earth. It can always improve, but it doesn’t need to be redone. There is no model that can be used to improve it, because it is already the gold standard.  

Let’s get through COVID-19 and move on. By the way, my son is just starting a $50 million test for his research on how to cure COVID-19. If you get sick, call immediately and I can give you the benefit of his research. He heads the government research program looking for a cure (not a vaccine). He developed the Ebola vaccine. The US creates the medicines and vaccines. China just steals them from us. We have to start defending our country.  It is the best the earth has ever seen.  

If you haven’t already got it, order the CERT program now.