The California Business Journal recently published an article profiling our partner Janathan Allen. The “California Business Journal focuses on writing dynamic and compelling magazine articles on small businesses, startups, business owners, entrepreneurs and general business professionals.”
Here is the text of the article:
Business and tax attorney Janathan Allen has a stern warning for small businesses caught in the economic downturn fueled by the coronavirus pandemic.
“If you think things are going to revert from where they were, then you won’t survive in all likelihood,” says Allen, a partner in the San Diego consultancy Allen Barron Inc. and founder of Janathan L Allen, APC. “If you don’t adapt, you won’t succeed.”
Allen has been helping business clients address several deep-rooted challenges, including finding ways to postpone rent payments.
“That’s going to be a huge issue at the end of the year because all the programs currently in place defer rent, they don’t abate it,” she says.
Navigating clients through the complex tax requirements and ramifications of the Paycheck Protection Program created in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act is taking up more time on her docket.
The program, which authorized up to $659 billion for job retention, allows small businesses to access this funding pool to pay up to eight weeks of payroll costs, including benefits, rent, utilities and mortgage interest.
Allen believes a clear assessment of the success of the CARES Act legislation and its efforts to stimulate the economy won’t truly be realized for years, if at all, considering its swift passage and lack of guidance in the 335-page document.
“There are thousands of questions that won’t be answered until tax returns, loan programs and results of some the regulations that came out are actually settled,” she says.
Developing longer-term strategies, Allen contends, is essential for business survival in the age of COVID-19, considering the great unknowns related to government interventions, business allowances, and an eventual vaccine.
“Often times that means restructuring what they are doing,” says the Montana native who began her career in public accounting, but quickly bored of that specialization.
