4A's Bulletin
Coronavirus and Washington

With a confirmed domestic infection rate of more than 1.5 million and an unemployment rate perilously close to 20%, it’s fair to say Congress is focused squarely on all things coronavirus. 

Since the passing of the first coronavirus relief bill on March 6, Congress has passed four coronavirus relief bills for a total price tag of slightly more than $3 trillion. And there’s more spending on the way.

While Congress had hoped the most recent bill, passed on April 23, would allow lawmakers to finally turn from triage bills to stimulus bills, rising infections and continuing job losses make that unlikely.

On May 15, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HEROES) Act (H.R. 6800) in an attempt to authorize spending for state and local governments, continued unemployment insurance, foreclosure prevention, testing and tracing, updates to the medical supply chains, and—of importance to many agencies—clarifications to the popular Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) concerning loan forgiveness.

The PPP has been a lifeline for many agencies, albeit one fraught with obstacles. As the covered loan period of eight weeks starts drawing to a close for those agencies that received funding in the first round, many have questions about how loan forgiveness will work. In anticipation of many of these problems, the HEROES Act seeks to amend the PPP with changes including an extension of the covered loan period beyond eight weeks—meaning businesses would have more than eight weeks to spend the money. (In the meantime, the SBA has recently released new guidance around loan forgiveness, found here). 

While it’s unlikely the HEROES Act will pass the U.S. Senate, it gives valuable insight into where the next round of negotiations around coronavirus relief are heading.
 

Privacy in 2020

The debate around contact tracing and other privacy concerns in the face of coronavirus has renewed another debate, this one around enacting a federal comprehensive privacy law.

Christine Wilson, Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, recently argued in The Wall Street Journal, “Comprehensive legislation is needed to help companies navigate issues such as accountability, risk management, data minimization, deidentification, and vendor management.” Several members of Congress have introduced legislation in response to privacy concerns around contact tracing and other coronavirus-related gathering-data methods.

Privacy For America, the 4A’s joint industry initiative to pass federal comprehensive privacy law, recently submitted comments to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, And Transportation in response to its hearing on using big data to fight coronavirus. The comments highlighted how a federal comprehensive privacy law would help assure companies and citizens about how collected data is used and secured.

The states continue to move on privacy, albeit more slowly than they might have in a normal spring. California privacy advocates have proposed a California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Version 2.0 initiative for the November ballot. The initiative would introduce data-breach liability, create an enforcement agency, and triple the CCPA’s existing fines for collecting and selling information of minors under 16.

States have introduced more than 25 privacy laws since January.
 

Maryland Passes Digital Advertising Tax

In late March, Maryland became the first state to pass a digital advertising tax, affecting companies with annual global revenues of more than $100 million. (The bill was part of a broader tax package covering new tobacco and sales and use taxes.)

Gov. Larry Hogan has vetoed the tax, sending it back to the Maryland Legislature, which is expected to narrowly override the veto. If that happens, the next stage could be litigation.
Nebraska, New York, and South Dakota also introduced taxes on advertising this year, but Maryland’s tax seems to be the first to focus so squarely on digital advertising. As all of these bills were introduced before coronavirus, a looming question for 2021 is how many states will follow suit and introduce advertising tax bills, whether specifically on digital or more broadly.

Unlike the federal government, most states have balanced budget amendments (with the exception of Vermont). With the fiscal year for most states ending June 30, states are looking at absolutely enormous budget holes to compensate for the decimation of sales tax revenues after stay-at-home orders. To meet their balanced budget obligations, states will need to drastically cut spending between now and June 30.

Ahead of FY 2021, states will be looking for revenue anywhere they can find it. And given the political sensitivities of raising property, income, and sales taxes on hard-hit citizens, raising and creating new corporate taxes will be the more politically palatable approach.
 
 
 
 
to guide your business through the coronavirus crisis.
 
 
Notice of Confidentiality: The information contained in this message is confidential and may constitute inside or non-public information under international, federal or state laws and is intended only for the use of the addressee. Unauthorized forwarding, copying, printing, distributing, or using such information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you are not the addressee, please promptly delete this message and notify the sender of the delivery error by email. Thank you.
 
 
Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter View our LinkedIn Profile Follow us on Twitter
 
This email was sent by: 4A's, 5 Bryant Park,
16th Floor, New York, NY 10018 

View in browser.
This email was sent to INSERT_EMAIL. Manage My Email Preferences.
© 2018 4A's. All rights reserved. www.aaaa.org  |   contact us
 
Unsubscribe from these messages.