Don't Panic!
COVID19, help
A Little Help for Small Business
in the time of COVID19
The Coronavirus, or covid 19, is a respiratory illness spreading from person to person. This illness has a high mortality rate, and is easily transmitted, causing many local and state governments to shut down areas of concentrated population.
For most business owners, dealing with a pandemic like this, is new territory. And you need to prepare your business, communicate with your customers and support your employees.
If your business financials feel volatile, you’re not alone...
Economic Impact Payments
What You need to know
and How to get it.
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Provide Resources and Support to Your Employees
Keep employees informed with documentation and advisories from the U.S. Department of Labor, SHRM, OSHA, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Keep Your Customers Informed
Share updates about your business on your website, via social media, or even through a phone call or personal email.
You need to prepare your business, communicate with customers, and support your employees during the coronavirus outbreak.
We've been receiving a number of questions, and wanted to share some resources that can help your business prepare and respond to COVID-19.
• Coronavirus: Planning and Preparing
• Coronavirus: Planning for Families and Caregivers
We hope that you and your loved ones are well.
April 15 Taxes Inc.
What you can do right now!
Financial Preparedness
1st step for Business Owners
Financial Preparedness
Travel Safe
Suggestion for Virtual Events
Best Practice for Remote Work
Employee Morale
If your business financials feel volatile, you’re not alone. Here are some other ways business owners can ensure as few financial losses as possible:
- Build out a business continuity plan: Jot down worst-case scenarios and potential business struggles. Then finalize a plan for dealing with those problems before they arise. This is your guide to moving forward with speed and confidence.
- Build a supply continuity plan: This plan focuses on getting all the goods and resources you need from alternative sources, should a vendor cease production.
- Create a communication strategy: This should be internal and external, to reduce confusion. Decide what you need to tell investors, employees, and contractors, and create a chain of command so messaging goes through proper channels.
- Explore virtual and e-commerce options: If your business relies on face-to-face contact or in- store purchasing, now’s the time to think outside the box. Consider virtual meeting rooms for consults and services and online retail spaces for goods.
Not all business owners can send employees home. If you have workers who must be on-site, we have a few suggestions for keeping people safe.
- Send sick people home: If an employee is experiencing flu, cold, or COVID-19 symptoms, don’t hesitate to send them home.
- Observe the CDC’s guidelines on hand-washing and sanitizing: Hand sanitizer must contain at least 60% alcohol to be effective. Post signs around the workplace, reminding employees to wash frequently.
- Sanitize everything: This includes surfaces, door handles, commonly used tools like keyboards, pens, or even card readers. If your workplace has hand-washed, communal dishes, put the dishes through a bleach bath after scrubbing.
- Keep a safe distance: We now know COVID-19 can be spread through saliva and mucus carried in coughs and sneezes. Experts recommend maintaining a 6-foot (2-meter) distance between yourself and others, to reduce the risk of contamination.
- Encourage a good night’s sleep: You may not be able to enforce a team bedtime, but managers should build schedules that allow for adequate rest times between shifts.
For most business owners, dealing with a pandemic like this is new territory. Here are some first steps to help you get started.
- Identify a task force: You have some decisions to make. Employees want to know you’re taking their safety into account. Investors want to know that you have a contingency plan in place. Identify people on your team to research each problem and build a proposal for moving forward.
- Before sending employees home, make a plan: This should include an agreed-upon communication platform and documented remote work expectations. Make sure employees have all the tools they need to be successful and have resources at their disposal for IT-related troubles.
- Focus on the financials: Keep investors or shareholders in the loop on future plans that may impact revenue. Investigate your business’s cash flow sources and create plans for alternative providers. An accountant may be able to help by completing a risk assessment on your books. A risk assessment will help you better prepare for gains or losses.
The simplest way to lower the risk of infection and contamination is to restrict all non-essential business travel. But for those unavoidable business trips, here are a few tips for keeping yourself and everyone else safe.
- Travel wisely: Do not travel to cities with known COVID-19 outbreaks, or to states in a declared State of Emergency.
- Avoid contact after traveling: The CDC recommends that all persons who might’ve come into contact with an infected person avoid contact with others for at least 14 days. Monitor your temperature for those 14 days to ensure good health before returning to work.
- Safeguard others: Upon return, stay away from the elderly, individuals with compromised immune systems, and people with chronic or severe health conditions.
- Rethink public transit: Consider your transportation options. Is there a way to minimize the number of people you encounter at close quarters when you travel? Sanitize after touching door handles or other common surfaces.
- Keep a safe distance: The CDC recommends people keep at least 6 feet (2 meters) apart.
The CDC has the most up-to-date recommendations on gatherings. Here are a few tips should you decide to move forward with a virtual event:
- Mix in multimedia. When hosting a virtual conference, it helps to keep participants engaged with periodic challenges and opportunities to participate. And social media provides an excellent avenue for getting involved from any location.
- Put dynamic speakers on camera. A person doesn’t have to be in the room to command a presence, but they do have to feel comfortable talking on camera. Try to book speakers with experience being on camera, or ask for a recorded sample before booking them to speak.
- Pre-record when possible. It’s less fun than a live recording, but pre-recording can help minimize the risk of technology glitches mid-talk. If pre-recording isn’t an option, try a tool, like Facebook Live, that can accommodate more traffic at once. Just be sure the speaker has a strong internet connection first.
- Create conversation spaces. One of the best parts of attending a conference is networking. Give attendees the opportunity to connect by inviting them to a messaging platform like Slack or Teams. Set up channels inside those tools, based around topics of discussion.
As cases of COVID-19 continue to escalate, businesses are issuing work-from-home policies, so employees slow down the virus’ spread. Here are a few tips for a seamless transition to a remote workforce:
- Make sure employees have the tools and equipment they need to work effectively: This includes instant messaging apps, video conferencing tools, and reliable internet access. For many, equipment needed includes a computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
- Encourage employees to designate a workspace in their home: Separating work from life helps employees focus and stay organized throughout the day.
- Clearly communicate remote team expectations: Employees should know when they’re expected to be on and working, how to communicate availability, and which meetings they’re expected to attend virtually.
- Take precautions to keep your business data and your employees safe: Avoid using public networks. Work in a private space like a home office rather than a coffee shop or co-working space.
Working remotely can leave employees feeling disconnected from teams and co-workers. But teamwork is an important ingredient for productivity. Here are a few tips to help keep employees’ connections thriving:
- Schedule and prioritize virtual hangouts with team members: Put time on the calendar just to catch up with co-workers and maintain personal relationships.
- Consider creating a virtual water cooler: Start a dedicated chat channel or video conference link that’s live all day. Employees can pop in and out as time permits, much like meeting in the breakroom.
- Encourage employee interaction through virtual challenges: Ask employees to post a picture of their four-legged co-workers, share their best home-office tips, or collaborate on a team playlist. Challenge your team to come up with fresh ideas each week.
- Find new ways to team build: Remember, the goal is to limit contact with others, so forming a human knot isn’t a good idea. Instead, look for online team-building opportunities. Slack extensions like Donut can pair up team members for virtual one-on-one conversations.
- Be transparent and practice patience: You’re all in this together. As you work through your new reality, remind employees to give one another a little patience and grace.
COVID19?
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness that can spread from person to person. The virus that causes COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that was first identified during an investigation into an outbreak in Wuhan, China. This illness has a high mortality rate, and is easily transmitted, causing many local and state governments to shut down areas that have concentrated population
What you need to know:
Social Security Payments - "Don't be fooled" (03-18-2020)
“I want you to hear directly from me how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting our services. The first thing you should know is that we continue to pay benefits. Be aware that scammers may try to trick you into thinking the pandemic is stopping your Social Security payments but that is not true. Don’t be fooled."
For more information, please visit https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/releases/.
To protect you and help stop the spread of this coronavirus, we cannot accept visitors in our offices at this time. There are several other ways you can get help. Many services are available online at www.socialsecurity.gov. If you have a critical need that you cannot address online, we can help you over the phone.
Mark Hinkle, Acting Press Officer
press.office@ssa.gov
Capital Access - Business Loan
Incidents can strain a small business's financial capacity to make payroll, maintain inventory and respond to market fluctuations (both sudden drops and surges in demand). Businesses should prepare by exploring and testing their capital access options so they have what they need when they need it.
IRS announces 90-day payment extension (03-17-20)
At a press conference held today, U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin announced the following extensions for federal income tax payments:
• Individuals and businesses with an April 15 filing deadline will be given an additional 90 days to pay taxes;
• Individuals will be able to defer up to $1 million of tax liability; and
• Corporations get an extension for up to $10 million.
Mnuchin was not specific about late-filing penalties for either the March 15 or April 15 deadlines, but it appears interest and penalties will be waived automatically. He stated, "All you have to do is file your taxes. You will automatically not get charged interest and penalties."
We will provide additional information when formal guidance is issued by the IRS.
In light of this information from the IRS, the FTB is looking at their extension to June 15, and we will let you know if the due date for California is extended to 90 days as well.
Update:
Notice 2020-18; Federal income tax filing and payment relief on account of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) emergency. The Treasury Department and IRS are providing relief to all taxpayers who have Federal income tax returns and Federal income tax payments due on April 15, 2020. The April 15, 2020 deadline is postponed to July 15, 2020. Associated interest, additions to tax, and penalties for late filing or late payment will be suspended until July 15, 2020.
Notice 2020-18 will be in IRB 2020-15, dated April 6, 2020.
Optima want to help you (03-26-20)2
Regarding COVID-19, we have added some helpful Business Accounting and HR Q&As at optima-news which should offer some insight that isn’t mainstream.
Payroll Tax Credits for Employers
A refundable tax credit equal to 100% of qualified family leave wages paid by an employer will be credited against the employer’s portion of social security taxes and can be claimed quarterly. If the credit exceeds the employer’s social security tax liability, the excess credit is refundable to the employer. https://www.sandiego.gov/economic-development/resources/relief
Charitable Deduction increase?
A potential amendment would increase the proposed $300 cap on charitable deductions included in the current Senate package of bills to roughly $4,000 for individuals and $8,000 for married couples. It would be available for all of 2020 and would have no giving floor or minimum donation amount, encouraging individual donations of any size.
Need Money? Optima can help you apply for SBA loans or assist you with other financing options: on March 11, the President directed the SBA to provide low-interest loans to small businesses (3.75%) and asked Congress to increase SBA funding by $50 billion. This may be separate from the current Disaster Loan Assistance program. (Congress has already allocated $8.3 billion to assist small businesses as part of an emergency spending package passed on March 4.)
Resources for you and your kids:
NASA’s image library is free
Free learning on Linkedin!
Great Curriculum ideas for your kids:
Links we are using currently to track COVID-19:
• LATimes
• CA Department of Public Health
• SD Regional Chamber of Commerce
• San Diego County Information
• CDC
•WHO
List of resources for Small Business
We strongly recommend the following list that cover Federal, State, Local and Private help for Small Businesses.
The most comprehensive list of resources for Small Business during Covid19 we have encounter so far, from Gusto…
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SRBZE2_6Nftwd02M6Oxj8MoeuZ7y93spXIgIPhkkp2w/htmlview#gid=0
Private corporations around the country are also finding ways to support small businesses, either through funding or free use of their services.
Facebook has launched a small business grants program offering $100 million in cash grants and ad credits for up to 30,000 small businesses.
UberEats is waiving delivery fees for all orders from independently-owned restaurants to keep them in business as many cities begin to mandate closure of storefronts.
Amazon created a $5 million Neighborhood Small Business Relief Fund to provide cash grants to local small businesses that will be impacted by fewer customers due to COVID-19. The fund is intended to support small businesses with fewer than 50 employees or less than $7 million in annual revenue located near Amazon’s Seattle office weather the outbreak.
Google has rolled out free access to its advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite customers until July 1 so businesses can stay connected with their teams and vendors.
Intuit also has a funding program. See link: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/smallbusinesshelp/?cid=DR_em_46556_001_Text1_US_QBOA
San Diego: Relief Package For Local Businesses (03-18-2020)
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced a $4 million economic relief package Wednesday for struggling local businesses affected financially by the coronavirus pandemic.
The city will work with local financial institutions to establish a relief fund, which will support zero-interest micro-loans for affected businesses, Faulconer said during an afternoon news conference at City Hall.
Faulconer said the relief fund would be kickstarted by money from the city's business revolving loan fund, and that he expected the fund to grow from the initial $4 million.
Additional steps the city will take to assist small businesses include a program to delay payments of business tax certificates and associated fees for 120 days; suspension of water billing fees and late payment penalties to prevent commercial account shutoffs; and an extension of all building permits for 180 days.
Faulconer said additional details on how businesses can apply for the loans will be released in the coming days.
"The goal of the San Diego economic relief package is simple: help businesses stay afloat so they can keep paying their employees," he said.
The announcement came one day after the San Diego City Council voted to support a temporary moratorium on evictions for San Diego residents and businesses. Any resident or business missing rent payments due to a loss of income or medical bills resulting from novel coronavirus will be granted a stay until at least May.
SBA Provide Loans for Small Businesses Impacted by COVID19 (03-12-2020)
Process for Accessing SBA’s Coronavirus (COVID-19) Disaster Relief Lending
- The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering designated states and territories low-interest federal disaster loans for working capital to small businesses suffering substantial economic injury as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Upon a request received from a state’s or territory’s Governor, SBA will issue under its own authority, as provided by the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act that was recently signed by the President, an Economic Injury Disaster Loan declaration.
- Any such Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance declaration issued by the SBA makes loans available to small businesses and private, non-profit organizations in designated areas of a state or territory to help alleviate economic injury caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
- SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance will coordinate with the state’s or territory’s Governor to submit the request for Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance.
- Once a declaration is made for designated areas within a state, the information on the application process for Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance will be made available to all affected communities.
- These loans may be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable and other bills that can’t be paid because of the disaster’s impact. The interest rate is 3.75% for small businesses without credit available elsewhere; businesses with credit available elsewhere are not eligible. The interest rate for non-profits is 2.75%.
- SBA offers loans with long-term repayments in order to keep payments affordable, up to a maximum of 30 years. Terms are determined on a case-by-case basis, based upon each borrower’s ability to repay.
- SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans are just one piece of the expanded focus of the federal government’s coordinated response, and the SBA is strongly committed to providing the most effective and customer-focused response possible.
For additional information, please contact the SBA disaster assistance customer service center. Call 1-800-659-2955 (TTY: 1-800-877-8339) or e-mail disastercustomerservice@sba.gov. Read complete article Here >
Effective Date for Employment Tax Credits Under the Families First Response Act (04-13-2020)
Notice 2020-21 provides that employment tax credits for paid qualified sick leave wages and paid qualified family leave wages required by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“the Act”) will apply to such wages and compensation paid for periods beginning on April 1, 2020 and ending on December 31, 2020, and that days beginning on April 1, 2020 and ending on December 31, 2020 will be taken into account for credits for paid qualified sick leave equivalents and paid qualified family leave equivalents for certain self-employed individuals provided by the Act.
Notice 2020-21 will be in IRB: 2020-16, dated April 13, 2020.
Employee Retention Credit available for many businesses financially impacted by COVID-19
The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service today launched the Employee Retention Credit, designed to encourage businesses to keep employees on their payroll. The refundable tax credit is 50% of up to $10,000 in wages paid by an eligible employer whose business has been financially impacted by COVID-19.
Does my business qualify to receive the Employee Retention Credit?
The credit is available to all employers regardless of size, including tax-exempt organizations. There are only two exceptions: State and local governments and their instrumentalities and small businesses who take small business loans.
Qualifying employers must fall into one of two categories:
1. The employer’s business is fully or partially suspended by government order due to COVID-19 during the calendar quarter.
2. The employer’s gross receipts are below 50% of the comparable quarter in 2019. Once the employer’s gross receipts go above 80% of a comparable quarter in 2019, they no longer qualify after the end of that quarter.
These measures are calculated each calendar quarter.
How is the credit calculated?
The amount of the credit is 50% of qualifying wages paid up to $10,000 in total. Wages paid after March 12, 2020, and before Jan. 1, 2021, are eligible for the credit. Wages taken into account are not limited to cash payments, but also include a portion of the cost of employer provided health care.
How do I know which wages qualify?
Qualifying wages are based on the average number of a business’s employees in 2019.
Employers with less than 100 employees: If the employer had 100 or fewer employees on average in 2019, the credit is based on wages paid to all employees, regardless if they worked or not. If the employees worked full time and were paid for full time work, the employer still receives the credit.
Employers with more than 100 employees: If the employer had more than 100 employees on average in 2019, then the credit is allowed only for wages paid to employees who did not work during the calendar quarter.
I am an eligible employer. How do I receive my credit?
Employers can be immediately reimbursed for the credit by reducing their required deposits of payroll taxes that have been withheld from employees’ wages by the amount of the credit.
Eligible employers will report their total qualified wages and the related health insurance costs for each quarter on their quarterly employment tax returns or Form 941 beginning with the second quarter. If the employer’s employment tax deposits are not sufficient to cover the credit, the employer may receive an advance payment from the IRS by submitting Form 7200, Advance Payment of Employer Credits Due to COVID-19.
Eligible employers can also request an advance of the Employee Retention Credit by submitting Form 7200.
Where can I find more information on the Employer Retention Credit and other COVID-19 economic relief efforts?
Updates on the implementation of this credit, Frequently Asked Questions on Tax Credits for Required Paid Leave and other information can be found on the Coronavirus page of IRS.gov.
