U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) joined U.S. Senate Banking Committee members - Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) - today in introducing the Paycheck Protection Small Business Forgiveness Act, bipartisan legislation to streamline forgiveness of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans for small businesses.
“The Paycheck Protection Program has been a lifeline for workers and small businesses in Missouri and states across the nation,” said U.S. Senator Roy Blunt. “This bill eliminates burdensome red tape to make it easier for employers to use the PPP loans to keep workers on the payroll and help businesses bounce back quickly.”
The approximately 3.7 million PPP loans of $150,000 or less account for 85 percent of all PPP approved loans but only 26 percent of the PPP funds delivered. The cost of applying for forgiveness for a PPP loan of this size is $2,000 for the small business and $500 for the lender. The bipartisan legislation introduced today could save small businesses $7.4 billion and banks nearly $2 billion.
“We can avoid the burdensome cost of superfluous bureaucracy required to arrive at the foregone conclusion of loan forgiveness by implementing a few commonsense changes,” said Senator Cramer. “The Paycheck Protection Small Business Forgiveness Act would give small businesses peace of mind by eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic requirements and simplifying the process for forgiving smaller loans. I urge my colleagues to support it and to consider including it in any future relief package.”
The Paycheck Protection Small Business Forgiveness Act includes forgiveness for PPP loans of $150,000 or less if the borrower submits a simple, one-page attestation form to the lender. It also ensures the lender will be held harmless from any enforcement action if the borrower’s attestation contained falsehoods.