It is important to safeguard small businesses from being taken advantage of by the big banks who are refusing to pay out congressionally mandated agent fees.
By all measures, the CARES Act and its Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) have been great successes. Both chambers of Congress and President Trump came together in a bipartisan effort to quickly enact the PPP, providing American small businesses with immediate access to $659 billion in federally funded loans. The PPP helped millions of small business owners keep employees on the payroll when they may have otherwise folded in the midst of the pandemic. The PPP is real relief allowing full forgiveness of the loan if used for payroll, employee benefits, rent or utilities. In fact, due to its success, the PPP has been extended, allowing more small businesses to receive help in their time of need.
Although banks were vital to the success of the program, one of the primary reasons the PPP program was able to get money in the hands of small businesses so rapidly was the agents involved in the process. These PPP agents are also small business owners—accountants, CPAs and bookkeepers—and they worked tirelessly to assist borrowers in getting access to PPP funds. Most of the PPP agents are small businesses themselves, with annual revenues of under $300,000—and approximately 45 percent of them are minority- or women-owned businesses.