Potential tax relief for restaurants left out of Restaurant Revitalization Fund
While the Restaurant Revitalization Fund provided a cross-section of U.S. restaurants with financial relief during the pandemic, industry groups said the fund fell far short of what restaurants needed to recover. Legislation introduced in December in the U.S. House of Representatives aims to help fill the relief gap. Nation’s Restaurant News reports that the House bill, a companion bill to the Restaurant Revitalization Tax Credit introduced in the Senate a few weeks earlier, would create a tax credit in 2023 to offset payroll liabilities owed by restaurants that applied and qualified for, but did not receive, compensation from the original Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Both the National Restaurant Association and the Independent Restaurant Coalition have endorsed the legislation, which is likely to come up for a vote early in this new session of Congress.
The credit would offset payroll tax liabilities up to $25,000 per quarter in 2023 for restaurants that were open before March 14, 2020, applied for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund in 2021, did not receive any grants, and experienced a revenue loss of at least 50 percent in 2020 or 2021 as compared with 2019, or a loss of at least 30 percent in both 2020 and 2021 as compared with 2019. The House and Senate versions of the bill are largely similar, with the primary difference being the specifications on eligibility based on the restaurant’s number of employees. You can follow the progress of the bill via the offices of Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.), and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who introduced the legislation.
The credit would offset payroll tax liabilities up to $25,000 per quarter in 2023 for restaurants that were open before March 14, 2020, applied for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund in 2021, did not receive any grants, and experienced a revenue loss of at least 50 percent in 2020 or 2021 as compared with 2019, or a loss of at least 30 percent in both 2020 and 2021 as compared with 2019. The House and Senate versions of the bill are largely similar, with the primary difference being the specifications on eligibility based on the restaurant’s number of employees. You can follow the progress of the bill via the offices of Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.), and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who introduced the legislation.