We've almost completed recovering all the lumber. Our faithful friends Joe Clark and Mary Taylor have been here virtually every day washing and rising boards while John stacks stuff. When the weather turned windy and rainy over the weekend we stopped work and switched to the financial side of recovery.
For those not in the know (and I was one of them until recently), FEMA provides recovery support for individuals but not businesses. The SBA handles loans to businesses to support disaster recovery. Over the weekend I pulled tax records while John assembled lists of the actual losses. We consolidated all the loss lists along with the immediate needs for new tools. John then headed out to talk with SBA folks on Monday. He made a dash back here so I could run cash flow reports for the past three years (ain't computerized accounting systems wonderful!) and then wrapped up the application.
SBA doesn't let you apply for a fixed amount of money. They assess your business and then meet with you to talk through what they think you'll need to be successful. We're waiting for a call back soon!
In the same disaster recovery center John met with IRS folks to talk about how best to handle deductions and losses for tax purposes. We'd considered filing a catastrophic loss form with IRS, which lets you refile returns for the past two years to recoup taxes already paid. The IRS folks advised us to check with tax pros before doing that. If the loss isn't crippling, the IRS folks suggested simply taking a loss in this year and rolling forward to future years, rather than attempting to recoup past payments. We'll check things out.
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