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Melissa Ostrower is a principal in the New York City, New York, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. and co-leader of the firm’s Employee Benefits practice group. She counsels clients in a broad range of employee benefit matters, including general compliance and administration of qualified retirement plans and nonqualified retirement plans.

Melissa assists clients with welfare plan issues involving cafeteria plans, health plans, flexible spending accounts, COBRA and the Affordable Care Act. She regularly speaks on all benefits issues including federal health care reform, fiduciary compliance and executive compensation.

Melissa regularly advises on executive compensation matters, including issues related to compliance with Section 409A, 162(m) and 280G of the Internal Revenue Code.

Melissa represents clients in connection with Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Labor audits and information requests. She also regularly assists clients in fixing plan operational and document errors. Melissa negotiates with benefits providers, volume submitter and prototype vendors, TPAs, insurers and auditors.

Melissa also advises clients in connection with phantom and equity based compensation arrangements.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has issued guidance on the forgiveness provisions applicable to loans made under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) created by the CARES Act.

The SBA was required to issue guidance on these provisions within 30 days of the enactment of the CARES Act, or no later than April 26, 2020.

Recent statements by Small Business Administration (SBA) and Treasury Department officials have confused many Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) borrowers and led many to return PPP funds or consider doing so. Finally, the SBA has issued FAQ 46, which should assuage many borrowers’ concerns.

Previously, the SBA notified borrowers through a number of pronouncements that they

The Small Business Administration (SBA) violated federal law by imposing conditions for loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that were not enacted in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, H.R. 748, P.L. 115-136 (CARES Act), Judge David Thuma has held. Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe v. United States

In our post of April 4, we advised there was an ambiguity between the CARES Act and subsequent guidance issued by the Small Business Administration (SBA) on whether employees of foreign affiliates of applicants are considered when determining eligibility for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans.

Applicants in the SBA’s Business Loan Programs (which includes

Guidance issued by the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration (SBA), the federal agency that administers the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), demonstrates that the PPP loans, as originally thought, were too good to be true.

PPP was established by section 1102 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), Public Law

Much has happened in the three-plus weeks since the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Securities (CARES) Act was enacted on March 27, 2020.  The $349 billion dollars appropriated to the newly created Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has been exhausted.  The Small Business Administration (SBA), the Federal agency administering the PPP, reports they have made over

Applicants in the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Business Loan Programs (which include the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)) are generally subject to the affiliation rule in 13 CFR Section 121.301, subject to certain statutory waivers.  These rules provide that in determining a concern’s size, the SBA counts the employees of both the concern whose size is

Many employers have contacted us over the years asking whether they may offer an “employer–payment plan” rather than offer a traditional group health insurance plan.  An employer-payment plan is a type of account-based plan that provides an employee reimbursement for all or a portion of the premium expense for individual health insurance coverage or other

In Notice 2018-99, the Internal Revenue Service sets forth interim guidance for taxpayers to determine parking expenses for qualified transportation fringes (QTFs) that are nondeductible and for tax-exempt organizations to determine the increase in unrelated business taxable income (UBTI) attributable to nondeductible parking expenses.  The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Act) amended these tax

As we previously reported, under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, starting in 2018, tax-exempt organizations are subject to a 21% excise tax on (i) remuneration exceeding $1 million paid to a “covered employee” in a tax year, and (ii) any “excess parachute payment” paid to a covered employee.  The IRS has recently published