Time for a dive into ERTC situations. I'm looking only at partially suspended business operations here. #taxtwitter Hard to capture a full situation in a sentence, but let's think big picture. I bet @JStaatsCPA is going to be disappointed in my low tech method, but here goes! 1/

Restaurant situation 1 - indoor dining is closed, outdoor dining is allowed, takeout is allowed. Don't get me started on allowing outdoor dining in MN in January (not joking it was specifically permitted), but I guess for your average climate locale what do you think? 2/

Restaurant situation 2 - indoor dining is allowed at 50% of capacity, outdoor dining is allowed, takeout is allowed 3/

Salon situation - permitted to open with 50% capacity, stylist not permitted to do double bookings meaning half as many clients allowed at once 4/

Spa situation - permitted to open with 50% capacity, but some services are prohibited like couples massage because it's too many unrelated people in the same room 5/

Management company that has rentals - they are not permitted to evict so they have nonpaying tenants and they aren't permitted to replace having a huge impact on the business overall 6/

For me the answer is yes ERTC in the first four and no in the fifth, but these are tough. Seems like a 50% capacity is a real restriction on a business. I guess I fall towards a more generous interpretation of partially shutdown? 7/

Can you get a different answer based on how well run the business is? Some restaurant is just killing it in the takeout game all of a sudden and the community rallies behind them so receipts are even with last year but indoor at 25%, is that a nominal impact on the biz? 8/

Restaurant with indoor at 25% where their takeout sucks because of terrible website so their receipts at 60% of previous levels. Same restriction very different biz outcomes, does the partially suspended apply equally? I dunno. Seems unfair to a biz that pivoted well. 9/

The IRS examples in the FAQs do address the idea of a nominal impact on a business. If it's nominal then no ERTC. But how well a business can pivot / change / adapt / manage plays a big role in how nominal the impact is. This is hard. That's all. End thread.