House votes to ease restrictions on coronavirus small business loans

The House passed a bill Thursday designed to give small businesses owners more flexibility in how they spend money from a key coronavirus aid program.

The Paycheck Protection Program, one of the core parts of the $2 trillion pandemic rescue package passed in March, includes standards for how companies have to use their loans in order to get them forgiven. The measure passed Thursday would ease those rules.

The plan would:

Reduce the share of aid money small business are required to spend on payroll from 75% to 60% (the PPP’s architects aimed to encourage companies to keep workers employed)
Extend the window businesses have to use the funds from two months to six months
Push back a June 30 deadline to rehire workers
Extend the time recipients have to repay the loan
Let companies that get loan forgiveness defer payroll taxes