John Cornyn: “I thank my colleague for his indulgence. One of the things we need to do is make sure that the Paycheck Protection…”

“I thank my colleague for his indulgence. One of the things we need to do is make sure that the Paycheck Protection Program is replenished as well. This is the most successful part of our coronavirus response--more than $670 billion appropriated to help small businesses maintain their payroll, to keep their employees on the payroll. More than 400,000 small businesses in Texas have received these loans, bringing in over $41 billion to the Lone Star State. This money has kept countless Texans on the payroll not only for today but into the future. I hope we will continue the Paycheck Protection Program as part of the next COVID-19 response. There is another provision that we need to address, though, and that has to do with the deductibility of the expenses of businesses that have received Paycheck Protection Program loans and grants. Unfortunately, while Congress made clear that we expected businesses that received these loans and grants to have the benefit of the ordinary business expenses, the Internal Revenue Service has said just the opposite. The Joint Tax Committee that scores bills--tax bills--has said that a bill we have now introduced that would allow that deductibility to make that very clear has a zero score because they understood that Congress intended to allow those deductions in the first place. We have two choices to help small businesses: We can write them another check, or we can allow them to deduct their ordinary business expenses.…”