Grant vs. Debt Accounting For PPP Funds

Jan 15, 2021

Over the past several weeks’ companies have started to receive notification of forgiveness of their PPP loans. As you begin to think about how you will account for your loan and forgiveness, it is important to remember proper GAAP accounting. As we noted in our prior blog, Accounting for PPP Loan Proceeds, the legal form of a PPP loan is debt. However, the PPP loan does include a forgiveness component which under certain scenarios permits treating the proceeds as a grant and following IAS 20 Accounting for Government Grants as an option. To be treated as a grant, the proceeds must be reasonably assured they will comply with the eligibility and forgiveness requirements. The biggest difference between the two options is under grant accounting, the income is recognized as the costs are incurred and for debt accounting, the gain is recognized when the entity is notified of forgiveness.

PPP loans should be derecognized when the debt is extinguished, in accordance with the guidance in ASC 405-20, Liabilities: Extinguishments of Liabilities. Under this guidance, debt is extinguished when either the debtor pays the creditor, or the debtor is legally released from being the primary obligator. As a result, when treating the PPP loan proceeds as debt you recognize the income in the year the company is notified of forgiveness. For any business with a 12/31 year-end who receive notification after such, even if the financial statements have not been issued, the gain should be recognized in 2021. If a company wants to recognize the gain during the fiscal year 2020 they should consider grant accounting.

Each borrower under the PPP program should carefully analyze its unique facts and circumstances in determining the appropriate accounting. Regardless of the accounting approach followed by a borrower they should disclose in the footnotes how the PPP loan was accounted for and where the related amounts are presented in the financial statements. Should you have questions about your specific situation, please contact your William Vaughan Company advisor or reach out to our contributor, Juli Seiwert in our firm’s audit department.

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Juli Seiwert, CPA
Audit Senior Manager, William Vaughan Company
juli.seiwert@wvco.com | 419.891.1040

Categories: Audit & Accounting, COVID-19

President Trump Signs Much Needed PPP Flexibility Bill Into Law

Jun 05, 2020

Today, President Trump signed the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act (the PPP Flexibility Act). This Act provides much-needed relief by relaxing the stringent guidelines for businesses to receive loan forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program.

Key provisions include:

• The original 8-week period in which borrowers needed to spend the PPP Loan proceeds received can now be extended to 24 weeks. This extension provides additional time and opportunity for businesses to make the qualified expenditures necessary to have the loan proceeds forgiven. However, it is advisable if all loan proceeds have already been spent, businesses elect to apply for the original 8-week period (which is permissible) and expedite their forgiveness assuming the full-time equivalents (FTEs) have been restored.
• Previous regulations required a minimum of 75% of the loan proceeds forgiven must be spent on payroll expenses, health insurance, and/or retirement plans. If not met, loan recipients would forfeit a portion of their forgiveness. Thankfully, that hurdle has been dramatically reduced to 60% which allows businesses to now allocate up to 40% of the potentially forgivable loan proceeds to rent, utilities, and interest on secured debt. However, it does appear upon reading this is a “cliff rule”. Meaning if you only spend 59% on payroll, potentially ZERO dollars will be forgiven.
• Before H.R. 7010, PPP loan forgiveness rules indicated the amount forgiven would be reduced proportionately to the reduction of a recipient’s workforce during the original 8-week window if that same number of employees were not brought back by June 30th. According to updated legislation, this window has been modified to use the new 24-week window mentioned above with the amnesty rehire date being pushed back to December 31, 2020. For example, take an employer with 80 employees pre-pandemic who reduced its workforce to 40 employees during the 24 weeks. Assuming they spend the loan proceeds on qualified expenses during said 24 weeks, the employer will receive complete forgiveness so long as they’ve brought the workforce back to 80 by December 31st.
• Whether due to government restrictions still in place, a lack of qualified individuals, or even individuals choosing not to return to work as a result of the current federal unemployment subsidy, an exception to the rehire rule has been enacted. To qualify for this exception, the borrower must establish they have been unable to restore previous FTE levels due to one or more of the aforementioned scenarios. Unfortunately, this exception is still largely a gray area and we are hopeful that additional guidance is imminent aucasinosonline.com.
• The repayment period for loan proceeds still owed after reductions for forgiveness and EIDL grants (up to $10,000) has been extended from 2 years to 5 years with the interest rate remaining unchanged at 1%. Additionally, payments on the amounts still owed can be deferred up to the date on which the SBA makes the loan forgiveness determination.

Many loan recipients were hopeful for some clarification and additional guidance as it pertains to the deductibility of expenses for which the PPP loan proceeds were used. However, this still remains unanswered.

William Vaughan Company continues to keep a careful watch on additional legislation and is committed to sharing with you our insights and perspectives as regulations develop aucasinosonline.com/nz. To ensure you are staying up-to-date, we encourage you to sign-up for our WVC Insights emails here.

Categories: COVID-19, Other Resources