Lobbyists seeking aid amid outbreak
From Tallahassee to Washington, they’re searching for support
The U.S. economy is crashing as the coronavirus spreads deeper into the country, and policymakers have responded with trillions of dollars in loans, tax breaks and safety-net benefits to help workers thrown out of their jobs and businesses hemorrhaging cash.
But while rebate checks and bailout funds attract most of the attention, lobbyists from Tallahassee to Washington are also scouring high and low to find every extra bit of help they can amid the crisis.
Retailers like Target and restaurant companies like Wendy’s got
Congress to fix a corporate tax “glitch.” The tourism industry won a reprieve from the Trump administration on a looming limit on air travel. Business lobbyists persuaded Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to suspend a state tax on loans.
In some cases, the aid has been substantial. In Florida, for instance, DeSantis has ordered transportation planners to speed up construction of a number of road projects around the state.
The first project that was picked to be accelerated in Orange County: An $80 million widening of Sand Lake Road in the region’s busy tourist corridor, where Sand Lake will intersect with a new road that Universal Orlando is building to serve its under-construction Epic Universe theme
“Speeding up improvements in this busy tourist area is especially crucial given Central Florida attracts 75 million visitors annually.” Jessica Ottaviano, Florida Department of Transportation
park. The Sand Lake widening, scheduled to end later this year, should now get done as much as six weeks sooner than anticipated.
Jessica Ottaviano, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Transportation, said the agency chose to accelerate the Sand Lake project because Orlando’s usually congested tourist district is largely free of cars and pedestrians right now. That allows construction crews to close lanes during the day, rather than only at night.
“Speeding up improvements in this busy tourist area is especially crucial given Central Florida attracts 75 million visitors annually,” she said.
Other forms of support have been more modest. Businesses, for instance, often use the sales taxes they charge their customers as a form of working capital before they must turn the money over to the state near the end of each month. Many who are now struggling to conserve cash urged the state to delay the monthly collection deadline, which had been set for April 20.
DeSantis granted the delay — but only until April 30, and mostly only for businesses that can demonstrate that they have been harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
An extra 10 days isn’t a lot of breathing room, particularly for a struggling firm that may have dipped into sales tax receipts to pay more pressing bills like wages, said James Sutton, a partner at the tax law firm Moffa, Sutton & Donnini in Fort Lauderdale. But sales taxes are critical to Florida’s ability to pay its own bills, because the state relies on the levy for nearly $4 of every $5 it raises in general funding.
“I just don’t think the state of Florida can afford to do any more than that,” Sutton said.
Many retailers and restaurants have been hammered especially hard by the new coronavirus, as governments have forced nonessential stores to close and made restaurants shut down their dining rooms. But there was a slight silver lining to the industry’s misfortune in the $2.2 trillion economic relief package that Congress rushed out the door last month.
For two years, the retail industry — including Florida companies like Darden Restaurants Inc., Publix Super Markets Inc., and Outback Steakhouse parent Bloomin’ Brands Inc. — had been lobbying federal lawmakers to fix a mistake in the 2017 tax law that made it harder for them to write off the costs of renovations.
Lawmakers refused to act. Democrats, who took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, weren’t interested in helping companies that were saving lots of money overall thanks to what was one of the largest corporate tax cuts in American history.
But Congress relented and included the retail fix in its coronavirus relief bill.
And lawmakers made the change retroactive to 2018, which will allow retail and restaurant companies that went ahead with renovations anyway to file for immediate tax refunds.
“It appears to have taken a pandemic,” said Sean Kennedy, a lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association. “But we’ll take the assist and appreciate the help.”
Long before the coronavirus pandemic struck, the travel industry had been warning of potential chaotic disruptions from a new federal law that will require all travelers to upgrade to new driver’s licenses before they can board an airplane. Nearly two-thirds of American adults haven’t yet obtained the licenses — known as “REAL ID” licenses — despite a looming deadline of Oct. 1.
But in late March, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it was postponing the deadline for a year. Tourism businesses, already anticipating a potentially challenging recovery once the pandemic passes, hailed the decision — and immediately began pressing for an even longer delay.
“We believe implementing
REAL ID enforcement prior to full recovery would severely delay or reverse the travel industry’s ability to recover quickly from the coronavirus crisis,” Roger Dow, the president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, wrote in a letter to the acting Homeland Security secretary.
In Florida, the scramble for savings unearthed an obscure tax issue that could have sapped some of the money that the federal government has begun pumping out through a $350 billion small-business loan program established under the coronavirus relief package.
The issue involves a state tax on unsecured loans. It’s not big one: Florida only taxes loans up to $700,000 — no more than $2,450 per loan. State lawmakers set the cap nearly 20 years ago because, tax attorneys say, business executives and other wealthy borrowers were dodging the tax by leaving the state to finalize loans.
But that tax — which is usually passed on to the borrower but can also be paid by the lender — was about to take a lot of little bites out of new government-backed “Payroll Protection Program” loans that banks have begun making under Congress’ economic rescue plan.
Most of those loans are expected to go to small businesses, though some midsized and large companies may qualify for them, too.
After lobbying by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, DeSantis used his emergency powers to suspend the tax on those loans.
“That $2,500 could be a significant fee for a borrower,” said Russ Hintze, a partner at the law firm Shutts & Bowen. “Doing this will make more money available to the business.”