Stimulus money, small business loans and grants for the airlinesare only pieces in the massive relief package that is the CARESAct. Among other things, the package includes tax benefits to aidin business recovery from the economic disruption caused by thecoronavirus pandemic. The cornerstone of the tax benefits,businesses are allowed to offset 100% of the prior year's netoperating loss. The carryback period has also been extended fromthree years to five years.

The relief package also includes a temporary payroll tax credittax credit. "The temporary tax credit encourages employers to paywages if their business is forced to fully or partially suspendoperations due to a government order, or the business experiencesmore than a 50% decline in gross receipts as compared to the samecalendar quarter in 2019," Phil Jelsma, a partnerat Crosbie Gliner Schiffman Southard &Swanson, tells GlobeSt.com. "The credit is on employmentor payroll taxes equal to 50% of each employee's qualified wagesfor the calendar quarter capped at $10,000 per employee for allcalendar quarters taken together. If the employer has a 100 orfewer employees, all employee wages are considered qualified wages.For employers with more than 100 employees, qualified wages arelimited only to those wages paid to employees who are not providingany services due to the operations being suspended by agovernmental order."