So, as a self-employed business person with a pretty modest annual income, I was pleased when I heard about the government’s Paycheck Protection Program. We are in our late 70s, and we depend on our business income to augment our modest savings. I put together all the required documentation and sent it to our bank which manages the PPP program for their customers, and I was shocked when they told me that our PPP payments would be a little over $100 a week, compared to the $600 that had been promoted. And furthermore, the reporting requirements are onerous.

It turns out that our gross income of X, which was reduced in our tax filing by expenses such as new equipment, business in home, energy costs, supplemental health insurance, etc. reduced our taxable income to Y. So, despite the fact that our gross income is how we paid for our life, it didn’t really mean anything, because it turns out that the benefit of the PPP program is based entirely on our taxable income, not our annual billings. It’s useless to small businesses that don’t have taxable income in the many thousands of dollars.