Small businesses have it tough enough trying to stay afloat in the pandemic.
Now the Small Business Administration has made it easier for the ones who received a smaller Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan, to have it forgiven.
Jason Teal said his restaurant, Bomb, Wings, and Rice Bar in Hamden is the only place in America where you can get a custom-made fried rice bowl.
“If a poke spot, a soul food spot, and a Chinese spot, had a baby, you would get Bomb, Wings, and Rice Bar.”
His concept seems to have taken off - he is still in business after opening the doors a little more than a year ago.
Like other small businesses, Teal needed help when sales took a dive during the height of the COVID-19 crisis, and he wanted to keep staff employed.
He got it in a forgivable PPP loan.
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“It gave us the help and cushion for the payroll. Cause you had a lot of employees that needed to work during these times," Teal said.
With paperwork on the forgivable loan coming due, the U.S. Small Business Administration, which oversees the PPP, has introduced a shorter, simpler, application to get the loan forgiven, something else that Teal is thankful for.
“Being a small business, you don’t wanna go out of your pocket to have to spend all this money on a CPA to do it for you.”
The SBA said its new rules on PPP loans under $50,000 also reduce how much lenders must review the documents from small businesses proving their loans should be forgiven.
This has impacted a lot of people like Teal. The SBA said that there are approximately $3.5 million PPP loans of $50,000 or less, totaling more than $62 billion.
