Maybe that would work as a retroactive claim once you get a job for which your degree actually makes sense as contributing to your business? If you get an art history degree, and then go get a job in banking, did you really need that degree for the business? As anything that you put on your resume that an employer uses to sort applicants countable as a business expense, because you might not get the job without it? If so, are your clothes that you wear to interviews, and the printing or online services you use for resumes also business expenses?

I didn't pay taxes on squat and it was well over $5250. They also paid for my Master's Degree and that was substantially over $5250. It was never on any tax documents or pay stubs at all.

I have no idea how it was done, I just went into the owner's office one day and said, "what can I do beyond what I'm already doing to make more money?" He gave me two options, travel more or go back to school. My wife said I was going back to school.

I would propose a (state) solution where free tuition for two years of community college is provided to anyone regardless of income level. (Students may still have to cover room and board, books and fees, etc., but there could be financial assistance there based on need.) If you obtain an associates degree with a 2.0 or above, then free tuition for the next two years at a state 4-year institution. If you can't get the degres within 2 or 4 years, then you pay or find coverage for the additional tuition costs. It would be a basic, solid, no-frills education. Doing this would require an honest investment in community and state colleges. We used to do this or something similar, and in California, the state schools were some of the best. (They still are, yet they're also extremely expensive.)

If you want to go straight to a 4-year state college or a private institution, then you figure out the financing on your own, either through private loans, financial assistance provided through the endowment, scholarships, etc.

I have a buddy who got a degree in literature who went to work in Microsoft and ended up in their division that works on printer drivers. He said he often benefited from his degree more than those who had computer science degrees.

Maybe that would work as a retroactive claim once you get a job for which your degree actually makes sense as contributing to your business? If you get an art history degree, and then go get a job in banking, did you really need that degree for the business? As anything that you put on your resume that an employer uses to sort applicants countable as a business expense, because you might not get the job without it? If so, are your clothes that you wear to interviews, and the printing or online services you use for resumes also business expenses?

This (or some variant of this) is the way.

I would tighten up the requirements to 3.0 to go to the 4 year and possibly offer a path straight from highschool. If you have a 2.0 your support stops with your AA. I would also consider limits on the amount of free tuition being based on credits taken instead of absolute time to give flexibility for those who have to work part time. It would be interesting to know the difference in cost between this option and our current efforts combined with proposed loan forgiveness.

I'd be flexible with the GPA. I realized 2.0 was low, but I'm not sure if 3.0 is too high. It also makes sense for some flexibility on credit hours vs. years. So if 60 credit hours is the threshold for an AA, then pay for that, and perhaps up to 65/70 to provide some flexibility.

I really think it comes down to an interest in funding community colleges first and then 4-year state colleges, with education being the priority and extra curriculars being secondary. I think the AA and GPA requirement is enough to incentivize those who want to take advantage of the opportunity. It requires an upfront investment, but I suspect it's less costly overall than the current system, with or without forgiveness, defaults, etc.

I know many, many people who are working jobs and doing great who graduated with degrees nowhere near what they're doing. When most employers put down educational requirements, they just want to make sure you finished a degree, unless it's for a specific task. This isn't done for engineers, obviously. There are a ton of companies out there looking for entry level people and still requiring degrees.

Seems like there's a difference between "I use this at my job" or "I'm better at my job because of this;" and "this is a requirement for this specific job."

So, if a person wants a job as an engineer, and gets an engineering degree because they know it's a prerequisite, and gets hired as an engineer, do they get to write off the degree as a business expense?

Or, if a person gets a degree in history because they know a degree, any degree, is going to be a check in the box as a hiring requirement, and they get hired to a job unrelated to history, do they get to write it off?

Or, if a person intends to be an engineer and gets an engineering degree, but then can't find an engineering job or decides instead to get a job teaching history, do they get to write it off?


I can see writing off college expenses as a business expense if you get a job, and the employer then sends you to school. It's tougher with the traditional path we've got where you go to college and then take your chances in the job market.

Just curious as this is new to me.

Do people really want taxpayers to pay student loan debt?

I understand what you're saying, I'm looking at just being able to write off educational expenses as an individual, it wouldn't be classified as a business expense. People go to college to better themselves, businesses send you to college to better their business, what's the difference? Why is the business being able to write off education more important to the public good than a person who gets an education?

If someone could make an argument like that for college, then maybe all college would be free.

Well, why don't we allow people to write off anything they do to better themselves? Go buy books? Write it off because being well read betters you. Take piano lessons? Write it off because it betters you.

I'm not sure it's workable, other than to skip logic and just declare it to be so.

We allow business to do some things because someone felt like it would help stimulate the economy. If someone could make an argument like that for college, then maybe all college would be free.

I consider myself a somewhat left leaning moderate. If I was in Congress I would have voted for PPP and against student loan forgiveness. I think there are much better long term structural solutions to fix the costs of higher education. I agree it is a problem, I just don't agree with that loan forgiveness as a solution.

I'm not sure if that is a sincere question or an attempt to make a point.

According to Google it was: "Senators Shaheen, Collins and Cardin, along with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), authored the Paycheck Protection Program, which became law as part of the CARES Act last year.

Some yes, some no. If a person has paid back the original loan amount and now are basically just paying the interest, yes, I'm for forgiving that balance. Education should not be a for profit business, in my opinion. If there is going to be interest on the loan, it should be for only the amount it takes to service the loan.

On the question of taxpayers paying student loan debt, -- a variation is do we want taxpayers paying for student education. We currently pay for it now in school taxes and most don't have an issue as it's a social good. The school taxes are rightly deducted as taxes paid.

PPP forgiveness requirements
You’re poised for PPP forgiveness when your small business meets the following requirements.

You spent PPP funds in 8 or 24 weeks
You need to account for where and when you spent each dollar in the forgiveness application. The December COVID-19 relief package allows PPP borrowers to choose to have their loan period cover eight or 24 weeks.

PPP recipients are asking themselves: Which is better? Since you don’t have to decide until you apply for forgiveness, run the forgiveness calculation using both periods. Choose whichever results in the higher forgiveness amount.

You met the 60% rule
PPP allows for full forgiveness when at least 60% of the PPP funds go toward eligible payroll costs (it had previously been 75%).

For full forgiveness, the remaining 40% must go toward:

Additional payroll costs
Mortgage interest
Rent
Utilities
Personal protective equipment and facility modification to help you comply with COVID-19 federal health and safety guidelines
Operating expenses for software, cloud computing services, and accounting
Essential payments to suppliers for your business’s operations
You might not recognize the last three items on the list above; the December stimulus package added them to the list of non-payroll-covered expenses.

Say your business received a $200,000 PPP loan; at least $120,000 must have gone toward eligible payroll costs. Simple enough, right? Wrong. The word “eligible” creates some mess.

If you’re a pass-through business owner, PPP loans are calculated based on your business’s 2019 net profits -- to account for owner compensation -- and average monthly employee payroll costs. The catch is earnings above $100,000 on an annualized basis were reduced to $100,000 for the calculation.

Say that one of your employees earns $125,000 annually. You could only count 80% of her wages toward the 60% payroll cost requirement ($100,000 limit ÷ $125,000 salary = 80% of total wages eligible for forgiveness).

Businesses that don’t pass the 60% rule can still apply for partial forgiveness. If you spend just $100,000 on payroll costs using the $200,000 PPP loan, the maximum forgiveness becomes $166,667 ($200,000 total loan ✕ [$100,000 used on payroll ÷ $120,000 allocated for payroll]).

You kept employees on the payroll
Legislators implemented the PPP to keep people employed during the pandemic. You need to bring your employee headcount back to pre-pandemic levels to receive full loan forgiveness.

The SBA calculates employee headcount using full-time equivalents (FTE), where a person who works 40 or more hours per week counts as one FTE. Someone who works 10 hours per week is 0.25 FTE (10 hours worked ÷ 40-hour workweek). Or you can opt for the SBA’s simplified FTE method by counting any part-time employee, regardless of hours worked, at 0.5 FTE.

Compare your FTE during the loan period to the average FTE during one of the following periods. If your FTE is the same as or higher than one of the periods below, you qualify for full payroll forgiveness:

Feb. 15, 2019, to June 30, 2019
Jan. 1, 2020, to Feb. 29, 2020
Your loan forgiveness drops when you don’t bring your FTE back to its pre-pandemic levels. For example, if you only rehire three of your four employees, your maximum forgiveness becomes 75% of the total loan amount.
You might qualify for full forgiveness if:

Safety requirements prevent you from returning to pre-pandemic operating levels.
Your headcount declines because of employees who are justifiably fired or voluntarily resign.
The SBA also cuts slack on rehiring employees:

You have until Dec. 31 to rehire employees laid off between Feb. 15 and April 26 due to the pandemic.
Employees who formally reject your written re-employment offer at the same pay and hours don’t count as staff reductions.
Your headcount isn’t affected by employees who ask for and are granted a reduction in working hours.

You didn’t reduce salaries and wages by more than 25%
For full forgiveness, employee salary and wages can’t fall below 75% of what they were when applying for the PPP. Any further reduction lowers the forgiveness amount. The wage reduction rule applies to employees whose annualized salaries are less than $100,000.

Say you were paying an employee $5,000 per month when you applied for the PPP loan. Financial circumstances led you to reduce his pay to $3,500 per month, a 30% decrease. The maximum wage reduction without penalty is 25%, which would’ve left him with $3,750 monthly.

Your forgiveness amount is reduced by $250 multiplied by your PPP loan period. If your PPP period is 24 weeks, the forgiveness amount is reduced by $1,500 ($250 additional monthly reduction ✕ 6-month PPP period).

The $5250 amount is for tax year 2023, and it's determined based on the amount paid during that year. They probably should have included it. But it's not surprising that they didn't.