Federal Assistance for Businesses Affected by COVID-19

Apr 3, 2020 - By the end of the year, the Fed had outstanding loans under these programs of only $41.1  billion. In December 2020, H.R. 133 ended the emergency lending programs and reduced the total amount of funding in support of the outstanding loans to $25  billion.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4215

Assessing Recent Changes to California Competes [Publication Details]

Mar 30, 2020 - Next, we describe the effects of these changes on the program in 2018‑19, the first year of their implementation. We then assess how the changes have affected the administration of the California Competes program and consider whether it is more or less effective than before.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/4213

Assessing Recent Changes to California Competes

Mar 30, 2020 - A prior requirement that 25  p ercent of the credits be reserved for small businesses —defined as having under $ 2  m illion in annual revenue —was eliminated. Chapter  52 also reduced the total amount of new credits that GO ‑Biz may allocate in any fiscal year, from $ 200  m illion to $ 180  m illion.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4213

Income Tax Withholding Tracker: 3/23 to 3/27 [EconTax Blog]

Mar 27, 2020 - The first graph compares withholding payments received this week to payments received in the comparable week in 2019, which ran from Monday, March 25 to Friday, March 29 of that year. In contrast to last week, withholding this week was noticeably affected by the outbreak, as payments this week were down 15 percent compared to the same week a year ago.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/446

Federal Paid Leave for Workers Impacted by COVID-19

Mar 27, 2020 - The law will be in effect until the end of the calendar year. Businesses Would Receive Federal Tax Credits to Cover Paid Sick Leave Costs. Employers that provide paid sick leave under H.R. 6201 would receive refundable tax credits each quarter that reduce their federal Social Security payroll taxes by the amount of paid sick leave provided.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4212

Weekly Unemployment Claims Update: March 15-21 [EconTax Blog]

Mar 26, 2020 - Weekly unemployment claims remained elevated for the better part of two years. Over time, this led to an historically large number of workers on unemployment insurance. For the current downturn to match the overall severity of the Great Recession, claims would need to remain at the current elevated level for at least several weeks.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/445

Nutrition Programs in COVID-19 Recovery Actions

Mar 25, 2020 - (The state in recent years has provided funding to supplement some of these federal programs.) Some Existing State-Only Programs Also Increase Californians ’ Nutrition Access. Although this post focuses on federal nutrition programs, the state also operates several programs increasing nutrition access for targeted populations.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4211

COVID-19 Disaster Declarations and Funding Implications

Mar 24, 2020 - Most notably, the state must agree to provide a 25  percent funding match. (The federal government covers the remaining 75  percent of eligible costs.) In addition to making California and other states eligible for additional funding, the President ’s emergency declaration also has some other key implications.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4210

COVID-19: Federal Health-Related Response

Mar 23, 2020 - Provides $25  Billion Nationwide for COVID-19 Testing-Related Activities. COVID Phase 3.5 provides an additional $25  billion to PHSSEF available nationwide for COVID-19 testing-related activities. (We discuss previous funding provided to PHSSEF earlier in this post under our discussion of the CARES Act.)
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4209

The 2020-21 Budget: Expanding the Minimum Franchise Tax Exemption

Mar 23, 2020 - About 25  p ercent of new companies do not file a timely corporate tax return in their first year of business. We are concerned that the exemption itself may be confusing new companies that might infer that they are not required to file a tax return because they are exempt from the minimum franchise tax in their first year.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4207