Based on the new guidelines released, can employees be laid off now to collect partial unemployment since the FTE count can be looked at later?
There's also the salary reduction rule to keep in mind.
On the original forgiveness application it looks at wage rates for each employee from January 1 through March 31, 2020 and compares it to the wage rate during the 8 week covered period to determine if salary levels were maintained and not reduced by more than 25%. This only applies to employees with an annualized salary of less than $100,000.
There was an additional safe harbor in place if the borrower can return wage levels by June 30, 2020 to the level it was as of February 15, 2020 the forgiveness will not be reduced.
My understanding is that everything with the date of June 30, 2020 on the forgiveness application can now be replaced by December 31, 2020, although we've yet to see anything from the SBA directly and how they are deciding to interpret the new laws.