Forgiveness application

[ttbtaxes]

If you have a client that was self-employed with no employees, how are you completing the 3508/3508-EZ/3508S in the box where it asks for "Number of Employees"? Zero or one?

[Anarchrist]

Haven't had the situation myself, but I've seen practitioners on other forums say they were putting 1.

[TaxGuyBill]

I haven't encountered this yet, but I would be quite hesitant about filling out a loan forgiveness application for a client. My expertise and my business is taxes, not loans, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for filling out that application. If they have questions and need some of the numbers (such as payroll, etc.), yes, of course I would help my clients with that. But not filling out the actual application.

That's just me, but you may give it some thought whether or not you want to be doing such a thing.

[Lion]

Your client can ask his banker what number they expect to see for his case.

[ttbtaxes]

My language was a little sloppy, sorry. I'm not going to to prepare the PPP forgiveness for any client. I have had several clients who are self-employed with no employees ask me how they should complete the "Number of Employees" part of the forgiveness application.

Something so simple, you'd think the SBA would have clarified that along the way to avoid confusion.

[Jiggers]

Didn't the employer have to have employees to get the "forgivable" loan?

[Lion]

No, Jiggers, we SE could apply based on our "owner compensation replacement" or 2.5/12 of our 2019 Schedule C "profit" within the SBA definition. Lacking any SBA direction on that line number, ttbtaxes, have your client ask his bank what they expect to see. The bank is the one that needs to approve his application before they themselves apply to the SBA for funds to forgive the loan. By the way, there are FAQs in multiple places, such as the IRS, SBA, US Treasury, banks, your tax research product, etc., so make sure you -- or tell your client to -- look all over.

[Gene V]

If you have a client that was self-employed with no employees, how are you completing the 3508/3508-EZ/3508S in the box where it asks for "Number of Employees"? Zero or one?

Just looking at the line--seems to me you would put ZERO on the line if you have no employees.

Employees at Time of Loan Application: ___________ Employees at Time of Forgiveness Application: __________

[MichaelDi09]

The answer is one , for both applications. I had asked the same question, to those processing my application. My forgiveness application was approved.

[Anarchrist]

One person on another forum stated they were applying for forgiveness online and the application stated something along the lines of putting zero would not allow the applicant to proceed and would terminate the application. The applicant had to input a positive number to proceed to the next screen. A SE person is considered an employee in certain situations. This is one of them. Enter 1 if you want the loan forgiven. Enter 0 if you want to repay the loan.