Brooklyn Daily Eagle – Businesses could be spared billions of dollars of higher taxes in coming years — potentially freeing up money to spend on employees or invest in their operations — as a result of federal coronavirus aid flowing to the states. Read the full article.
Governors and lawmakers in more than half the states are planning to use at least part of their federal pandemic relief money to bail out unemployment insurance trust funds that were drained by a surge in jobless claims caused by business closures and restrictions, according to an Associated Press review.
By tapping into the federal aid, states could avoid automatic tax hikes that otherwise would be imposed on businesses to repay federal loans that have kept state unemployment systems afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means state jobless funds could recover much faster than they did after the Great Recession, when it took some states five to 10 years to replenish their funds.
