I am not commenting on whether or not they should have been. I am not interested in tying them back to discussion of any other loans or loan forgiveness.
Why call them loans if they are not?
In: Economics
Our company got a PPP loan. I was the person responsible for all the paperwork.
The reason they were called loans is because that’s what they were. When we applied, we didn’t even know what the final forgiveness criteria would be. We just knew there would be an opportunity for forgiveness. Also keep in mind that most people who applied weren’t yet experiencing the impacts of the pandemic. The first round of the program rolled out before things got really bad.
So you applied for this loan, and you knew the loan would have a forgiveness program, but you didn’t know the specifics.
Fast forward a bit, and the government rolled out the forgiveness criterial. The forgiveness option we used was based around payroll. If we maintained our payroll levels during the pandemic, we could get forgiveness. If you didn’t, we couldn’t. There were other options for seeking forgiveness, but I don’t recall the specific details.
Here’s the important part though: if you did nothing, you didn’t get forgiveness by default. You’d have to pay the money back. That’s why they were loans, and not simply stimulus money.
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