Advocacy 

• Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Forgiveness Update: On Friday, May 15, the Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department published the PPP loan forgiveness application. You can access the PPP loan forgiveness application here. Look for updated details on loan forgiveness in Bookselling This Week on Wednesday. 

• PPP Loan Increases for Partnerships and Seasonal Employers: The SBA and Treasury are allowing partnerships and seasonal employers to increase their PPP loan amounts if their loans were disbursed before guidance was issued on how to calculate the maximum loan amounts. You should already know if your bookstore is a partnership and/or a seasonal employer as you would have used this information to complete your original loan application. See here for more information.

  • If a partnership received a PPP loan that did not include any compensation for its partners, the loan amount can be increased to include partner compensation. 

  • If a seasonal employer received a PPP loan before the criterion for determining the maximum loan amount became available, the loan amount can be increased based on the revised calculation.
    

    If you are a partnership and/or a seasonal employer and you’re interested in taking advantage of the loan increases, quickly contact your lender for more information, including eligibility, as lenders cannot increase a PPP loan amount after lenders have reported to the SBA (which must be done within 20 calendar days after a PPP loan is approved), or by Friday, May 22, for loans approved before the SBA updated its reporting requirements.

• Reminder: Tell Your Lawmakers to Pass the Small Business Expense Protection Act: The Small Business Expense Protection Act would clarify the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program so small businesses can deduct expenses paid with a forgiven PPP loan from their taxes. This bill is in response to an April 30 IRS notice that said businesses that qualify for PPP loan forgiveness cannot deduct wages or other business expenses they paid for with forgiven PPP funds. This new bill would reverse that IRS rule.

  • Action item: Reach out to your Senators and Representative to express your support for this legislation.

    • Tell your lawmakers: “Support the Small Business Expense Protection Act to reverse the IRS’s misguided ruling prohibiting businesses from deducting expenses associated with PPP loans. This IRS guidance is the opposite of what Congress intended when crafting the CARES Act. Small businesses that receive PPP loans should not be penalized with an unexpected tax bill when they receive urgently needed federal relief. I urge you to support this legislation so expenses paid with a forgiven PPP loan can still be deducted from small businesses’ taxes. This is much-needed to make sure small businesses have the liquidity and help to get through these difficult times.” 

• Eligible PPP Payroll Expenses: When calculating your PPP usage for forgiveness, remember the following can all be counted toward payroll expenses: 

  • Salary, wages, commissions, or tips (capped at $100,000 on an annualized basis for each employee);

  • Employee benefits including costs for vacation; parental, family, medical, or sick leave; allowance for separation or dismissal; payments required for the provisions of group health care benefits including insurance premiums; and payment of any retirement benefit;

  • State and local taxes assessed on compensation; and

  • For a sole proprietor or independent contractor: wages, commissions, income, or net earnings from self-employment, capped at $100,000 on an annualized basis for each employee.

• PPP Usage Reports: There have been reports of retailers finding creative ways to spend their PPP money on payroll: hiring relatives, putting vendors on payroll to do special projects like painting or building websites, paying employees to stay home, or paying employees to work from home on website changes or social media campaigns. Talk to your accountant about legalities and how to use your PPP money on payroll, beyond the obvious, to ensure that the loan is forgivable.

• Check here for more FAQ and information about PPP funds.

Zoom Trivia Social for the Book Industry, May 21
Join friends from across the country and across the book industry for the first ever Book Industry Study Group (BISG) Zoom trivia social. Proceeds from the $5 donation entry fee benefit the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) and will be matched dollar-for-dollar by BISG. 

Store Status Update
Please update your store's status! Publishers are asking which stores are open, who they can ship galleys to, and which stores are able and willing to host virtual events. We need your help making this information available to them. You can fill out the form (it takes just three minutes) and also see the results. (Note: This information will be public.)

Cleaning Considerations for Reopening
This NPR article from March has some valuable information that’s relevant to stores that are reopening.

Consumer Behavior Trends
Very little is predictable right now, including your customers’ behavior and interests. Watching for current consumer trends will help you with everything from buying books for your store to determining categories to cut or expand as you rethink your store’s layout with social distancing in mind. 

ABA is here for all of you. Please reach out if there is anything we can help with. We are an incredibly creative, resilient, supportive industry. We’ll get through this, together.

Best,
Allison