Join us for the second installment of our new series, Wellness Reimagined, sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.
09/19/2023
12:00pm - 2:00pm
Blue Cross Blue Shield
Join us for the BIMA's thought leadership panel around AI in the advertising industry and gain insights from Noor Naseer.
09/26/2023
5:30pm - 7:30pm
Hill Holliday
Corean Reynold was recently appointed the Director of Nightlife Economy for the City of Boston, where she brings a wealth of experience and a passion for fostering an equitable and thriving nightlife ecosystem.
10/04/2023
6:00pm - 7:30pm
Roundhead Brewing Company
Designed for mid-level managers and supervisors, this new certificate program addresses workplace well-being through unique, innovative, and actionable methods.
Join our Transformational DEI Certificate! Our comprehensive learning & development offerings are designed to connect and grow strong leaders who lead both inside and out of the office.
Our Women’s Leadership Program enables you to take your leadership to the next level by arming you with the most in-demand leadership toolkit.
Our Boston’s Future Leaders (BFL) program provides emerging leaders with a socially conscious and civically engaged leadership toolkit, as well as the opportunity to apply their knowledge through experiential assignments.
Our Economic Inclusion Committee provides strategic support around research, policies, and programs that are focused on building equal opportunity.
We are developing an ecosystem of corporations and partners with the influence and buying power to transform economic inclusion for minority business enterprises (MBEs).
The Fierce Urgency of Now Festival brings Boston’s diverse young professionals together with business leaders, organizations and their peers to build connection, advance careers and ignite positive change.
09/12/2023 -
09/16/2023
Greater Boston
City Awake empowers young professionals in a variety of ways that encourages these rising leaders to stay invested in the region’s future success.
BIMA (the Boston Interactive Media Association) serves a vibrant community of like-minded professionals from agencies, brands, publishers, and ad-tech companies with business interests in the New England market.
For more than 25 years, the Chamber’s Women’s Network has connected female professionals of all background and career levels. Today, our Women’s Network is the largest in New England, strengthening the professional networks of women each year.
The Massachusetts Apprentice Network convenes employers, training providers, and talent sources interested in developing and implementing apprenticeship programs in occupations across industries and statewide in fields such as tech, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, and more.
We support small business through public policy initiatives, events designed to connect small businesses in Greater Boston to their peers and established business leaders, professional development offerings, and free small business advising.
Explore our mission and values to better understand how we are leading the business community forward.
Our member directory is your resource to discover, connect, and engage with Boston’s businesses from every industry and sector.
The Chamber submitted comments on the Department of Revenue’s Working Draft Technical Information Release (TIR) 20-XX: Massachusetts Tax Implications of Selected Provisions of the Federal CARES Act. The CARES Act created the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), allowing small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 economic shutdown to apply for forgivable loans if they keep employees on payroll. Per the Department’s draft TIR, PPP loans forgiven under §1106 of the CARES Act will be included in gross income and subject to tax for individual taxpayers, including businesses that file under the individual income tax, but not corporate taxpayers. Given this, we urge the state to conform to the federal income exclusion for PPP loan forgiveness outlined in the CARES Act.
Debt forgiveness typically is treated as taxable income; however, the CARES Act specifically excludes forgivable PPP loans from this provision for federal taxes. Because, in general, Massachusetts follows the federal Internal Revenue Code (IRC) in effect on January 1, 2005 for personal income taxes but uses rolling conformity for corporate income taxes, a business’s legal form of organization dictates whether it can fully benefit from the CARES Act’s forgivable PPP loans.
Not conforming to the federal income exclusion for PPP loan forgiveness impacts businesses not subject to the corporate income tax. This includes pass-through entities like S corporations and partnerships, which accounted for more than three-quarters of all Massachusetts business tax returns received by the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) in FY 2018.[1] Most pass-through entities are small businesses, making them disproportionately impacted by the choice not to conform to the PPP loan forgiveness exclusion.[2]
In addition, taxing forgivable PPP loans undermines the benefits Congress provides in the CARES Act. Congress intended for refundable PPP loans to serve as an incentive for businesses to keep employees on the payroll during the COVID-19 crisis. Taxing the refundable portion of these loans undercuts that goal because pass-through entities (S corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships) account for almost half (47.6 percent) of all private sector employment in Massachusetts.[3]
The Chamber acknowledges that the COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdown put Massachusetts in a difficult and uncertain fiscal position that requires budget writers to balance the need for tax revenue with taxpayer relief. However, the survival of small businesses is equally, if not more, important. The state can provide much needed relief for small businesses by following the intent of the CARES Act and not taxing the forgivable loans keeping many businesses afloat.
Looking beyond this specific tax provision in the CARES Act, the state must prioritize addressing the broader issue of personal income tax conformity. Massachusetts is an outlier in this regard: it is the only state not to update its conformity with the IRC in the past six years.[4] Updating our conformity reduces compliance burdens for both employers and individuals and can make our tax code more competitive.
Footnotes
[1] IRS Data Book, Table 3, FY 2018
[2] 2017 Statistics of US Businesses (SUSB) Annual Data Tables by Establishment
[3] US Census, County Business Patterns by Legal Form of Organization: 2017. Table CB1700CBP
[4] Tax Foundation, 2019
Popular Resources