Letter from 47 Senate Democrats to Treasury and SBA on the PPP forgiveness process (June 12, 2020)
Summary
A letter dated June 12, 2020 from United States Senators to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Small Business Administration Administrator Jovita Carranza about the Paycheck Protection Program forgiveness process. The senators write that the forgiveness form is especially burdensome for very small and underserved businesses and that borrowers may feel compelled to hire accountants and attorneys. They ask the Administration to streamline the forgiveness application, especially for smaller loans, and to engage with Congress before releasing a final updated form. The letter carries a long list of Senate signature lines.
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“Letter from 47 Senate Democrats to Treasury and SBA on the PPP forgiveness process (June 12, 2020).”
Original at www.warren.senate.gov. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/letter-from-47-senate-democrats-to-treasury-and-sba-on-the-ppp-forgive-f6b3644517/
, SHA-256 a96d0c47df9749bd8339f20583957a54b040defb283a6a33b7ab9803edbe90e1.Full text
WASHINGTON, DC 20510
June 12, 2020
The Honorable Steven Mnuchin The Honorable Jovita Carranza
Secretary of the Treasury Administrator
U.S. Department of the Treasury U.S. Small Business Administration
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW 409 3rd Street SW
Washington, D.C. 20220 Washington, D.C. 20416
Dear Secretary Mnuchin and Administrator Carranza:
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) represents the largest small business relief effort in our
nation’s history. We were pleased to have passed into law the Paycheck Protection Program
Flexibility Act, which builds upon and improves this vital program. While these fixes are an
important step forward in making PPP work better for small businesses and nonprofits, much
work remains to see the program work more efficiently and fairly, particularly for small dollar
borrowers. As the program enters its next phase and borrowers begin to seek forgiveness of their
loans, there is an immediate need for significant improvements to the forgiveness application
process, which is tremendously cumbersome and overly complex, especially for very small
businesses, sole proprietors, and underserved borrowers.
We appreciate your acknowledgment in the recent Senate Small Business Committee hearing
that the Administration will be updating the forgiveness form to reflect the critical changes
required by the recently passed bill, and that this rewrite is an opportunity to improve the
forgiveness process. We want to encourage the Small Business Administration and the
Department of Treasury to significantly streamline and simplify the forgiveness process to
ensure the smallest and most underserved businesses are able to fully take advantage of the
program without having to make inordinate investments of time or limited resources.
Since the release of the forgiveness form and instructions a few weeks ago, we have heard
significant concerns from small businesses and lenders alike about the complexity of the process
especially for the smallest businesses. The 11-page form that must be completed to secure
forgiveness is especially burdensome, time-consuming, and costly for very small and
underserved businesses, including microbusinesses, sole proprietorships, rural, and minority-
owned small businesses. We are especially concerned that so many of these very small and
underserved businesses will feel compelled to hire accountants and attorneys to complete the
forgiveness form in a manner that provides comfort that the loans will be forgiven. This is not
just an issue for existing borrowers. It contributes to already existing barriers to entry for new
borrowers. For example, recent survey data indicated that close to a fifth of minority business
owners did not even try to apply for assistance from programs like PPP that they could have
greatly benefited from because they saw the application process to be too difficult and long. 1 The
lengthy and complicated forgiveness form only adds to the already significant hurdles for
inclusion of all small businesses in the program.
1
“Federal Stimulus Survey Findings,” Prepared by Global Strategy Group for Color of Change and UnidosUS,
https://theblackresponse.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/COC-UnidosUS-Abbreviated-Deck-F05.13.20.pdf
1
While we understand clearly the need to uphold accountability and ensure taxpayer money is
properly spent, this process should not be so complex so as to require already struggling small
businesses to spend significant resources on services to complete a government form or worry
that if they do not, their application will be rejected. To avoid the chaos that borrowers and
lenders experienced in the early weeks of this program, we request that the Administration
consider streamlining the forgiveness application, especially for smaller loans, and provide
adequate resources to ensure a smooth and reliable process that small businesses and nonprofits
can have faith in. We also request that before the Administration releases a final, updated form
that you engage directly with Congress for input to ensure the form upholds Congressional intent
within the CARES Act and follows through on the requests within this letter.
To achieve these results, we request the Administration consider the following:
• Create a process for streamlined forgiveness for low-dollar loan amounts. This should
include an easy-to-use form that requires a simple attestation on fund use and minimal
documentation. This would significantly reduce burdens and provide as much flexibility
as possible for very small businesses seeking to access forgiveness.
• Issue guidance providing lenders with some form of reasonable safe harbor protection
when certifications are made by borrowers in the forgiveness process for low-dollar loan
amounts.
• Develop a comprehensive suite of approved online tools and resources to help small
businesses and nonprofits navigate the forgiveness process, including “how to” videos,
online reporting calculators that have the validation of the government, and easy-to-use
materials to empower resource partners like the Small Business Development Centers,
Women’s Business Centers, and Minority Business Development Agency’s Business
Centers in assisting with the completion of the forgiveness form.
• Stand up a well-staffed help line for borrowers or lenders to easily reach someone to talk
through any challenges they encounter with the forgiveness forms or process.
The need for the Administration to update and revise the forgiveness form to reflect the changes
included in the recently passed bill and create a more simplified process also presents an
opportunity to collect additional information from program participants that complete the
forgiveness process. We were pleased that the initial form includes an option for applicants to
provide demographic data, for example. An updated, streamlined forgiveness form should
continue to collect this information, ideally including a demographic reporting section on the
first page to ensure as much information as possible is gathered to provide much more clarity on
whether PPP assistance has reached communities of color.
In this public health and economic emergency, we must do all we can to make sure our small
businesses have the support and assistance they need to weather the crisis. Small businesses
should not need to spend precious resources on an accountant or attorneys to finalize their
forgiveness application. The government should simplify the process such that these experts are
not necessary or assist in providing this much-needed support. That must be especially the case
for our very small and underserved businesses, including in communities of color, that
oftentimes lack the resources of other businesses and in many cases, have faced long-standing
economic and process fairness challenges even before COVID-19. We have a chance to improve
the PPP forgiveness process now for these small businesses to ensure the program works as
intended.
We appreciate your immediate attention to this request and thank you for your continued work to
mitigate the impact that this public health crisis is having on the backbone of our economy, our
American small businesses.
Sincerely,
__________________________ ____________________________
Charles E. Schumer Benjamin L. Cardin
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Sherrod Brown Jeanne Shaheen
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Tammy Duckworth Edward J. Markey
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Patrick Leahy Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Mazie K. Hirono Doug Jones
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Jacky Rosen Brian Schatz
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Sheldon Whitehouse Michael F. Bennet
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Christopher A. Coons Patty Murray
United States Senator United States Senator
/s/ Chris Van Hollen
__________________________ ____________________________
Chris Van Hollen Kirsten Gillibrand
United States Senator United States Senator
/s/ Martin Heinrich
__________________________ ____________________________
Martin Heinrich Bernard Sanders
United States Senator United States Senator
/s/ Robert P. Casey, Jr.
__________________________ ____________________________
Debbie Stabenow Robert P. Casey, Jr.
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Tammy Baldwin Margaret Wood Hassan
United States Senator United States Senator
/s/ Jack Reed
__________________________ ____________________________
Amy Klobuchar Jack Reed
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Christopher S. Murphy Tim Kaine
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Angus S. King, Jr. Tom Udall
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Robert Menendez Gary C. Peters
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Catherine Cortez Masto Cory A. Booker
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Thomas R. Carper Maria Cantwell
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Ron Wyden Elizabeth Warren
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Richard Blumenthal Tina Smith
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Dianne Feinstein Jeffrey A. Merkley
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ ____________________________
Jon Tester Mark R. Warner
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________ __________________________
Kamala D. Harris Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator United States Senator
__________________________
Joe Manchin III
United States Senator
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