Argentum was among the senior living and care-related organizations that joined a coalition of 5,000 businesses across the nation urging congressional leaders to pass financial relief legislation by the end of the year.
On top of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent economic downturn and natural disasters, certain tax provisions that previously helped the business sector either expired or are set to expire at the end of the year.
In a letter to congressional leaders, the group collectively asked lawmakers Friday to enact a package of disaster tax relief provisions and to extend expired or expiring tax provisions, as it has done in the past but has not taken up since the end of 2020.
“All these cataclysmic events have resulted in significant economic losses, closures and inability for employees to perform their jobs,” the letter reads. “These effects would be ameliorated by the enactment of the effective disaster tax relief that Congress has historically enacted since Hurricane Katrina.”
The coalition also said pandemic losses were exacerbated by the repeal of the Employee Retention Tax Credit in the third quarter of 2021. The ERTC helped cover costs for employers who experienced revenue drops and kept workers on the payroll.
The credit originally was enacted as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March 2020, was expanded in December 2020, and was extended as part of the American Rescue Plan Act in March 2021 to run through the end of 2021. But the credit was included as a pay-for in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act enacted in November 2021. The law retroactively ended the credit early on Sept. 30, 2021.
“Many employers in both the business and nonprofit communities were depending upon tax relief to help keep their businesses open and maintain employees on payroll,” the letter reads. “That foregone relief is even more essential now as wages and costs of doing business have gone up dramatically over the past two years.”
The coalition noted that at least 18 traditional tax extenders expired in 2021, and at least two more will expire before the end of the year after not being included as part of an omnibus spending bill.
“Most employers have and continue to face significant financial headwinds from natural disasters, the pandemic, the economic downturn, higher wages and supply chain bottlenecks over the past two and a half years,” the letter reads. “Enactment of disaster tax relief, the tax extenders and the reinstatement of the fourth quarter of the Employee Retention Tax is critically important to our financial well being.”
Joining Argentum in signing the letter were long-term care organizations such as American Senior Communities, Americare Senior Living, Arbor Glen Independent & Assisted Living, Fox Run at Orchard Park continuing care retirement community, Pathways Assisted Living, Primrose Retirement Communities, Sea View Assisted Living, Wheatfields Assisted Living and Vitality Senior Services.
