ICBA pitches provisions for pending relief package

ICBA today is advancing its recommendations for the pandemic relief package before Congress.

Developed with community bankers, the ICBA recommendations in today's letter to Congress include:

• Expanding support for Paycheck Protection Program lending and implementing needed PPP reforms.
• Extending troubled debt restructuring relief and capital, accounting, and Community Bank Leverage Ratio reforms.
• Allowing interest on loans secured by agricultural real estate or primary residences in rural communities to be tax-exempt.
• Preserving and extending the CARES Act's five-year net-operating-loss tax provisions.
• Extending the government-sponsored enterprises’ qualified mortgage patch to January 2022.
• Raising the bank-qualified municipal bond annual issuance limit.
• Ensuring regulators do not classify agricultural loans as substandard at least through the end of 2022.

The COVID package now in play is being advanced under more challenging budget reconciliation rules for including any provisions. ICBA will work with Congress to advance these policies as the debate over pandemic relief continues in the coming weeks.