King County has provided funding to the Historic South Downtown Community Preservation & Development Authority (HSD), an agency created by the State of Washington to promote and preserve Seattle’s Pioneer Square and International District Neighborhoods.  The HSD will issue grants to nonprofit organizations that provide programming and services, or that provide direct support to small businesses, in these neighborhoods.

The HSD will release up to $475,000 funds through approximately June 26, 2020 in order to stabilize the operations of local nonprofits and small businesses located in the Pioneer Square and International District Neighborhoods.  The closing...Read More

Recently, the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) released a new application for businesses to apply for loan forgiveness if they received a Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan.  The application is helpful as it provides insight as to how forgiveness will be calculated.  You can find the application here.

However, many business owners still hold questions regarding how loan forgiveness applies specifically to their situation.  Beresford Booth’s upcoming webinar will discuss this more and in greater depth.  You may register here.

At Beresford Booth, we continue to monitor the...Read More

In response to the postponement of the 2020 Major League Soccer season due to COVID-19, the RAVE Foundation has established the Seattle Sounders FC Relief Fund to assist individuals and small businesses in neighborhoods near CenturyLink Field.  Grants will be made on a rolling and ongoing basis contingent upon the availability of funds.

Eligible individuals must have been:

• Laid off, furloughed, or on reduced hours since March 1^st due to COVID-19, and as a result, negatively impacted and unable to pay reasonable and necessary living expenses;
• Employed at a business either staffing Sounders FC events or...Read More

The “applicable exclusion amount” is the amount of a deceased person’s estate that passes free of Washington estate tax.  This differs from the unlimited marital deduction that applies when one spouse dies and transfers his or her interest in property to their surviving spouse.  In 2013, the state of Washington amended the statute concerning the applicable exclusion amount to provide for an annual adjustment based on changes in the consumer price index.  As the result of application of the annual adjustment, the amount of a Washington estate that passes free of Washington estate tax to someone...Read More

When parties enter into a contract, they usually assume the contract will be performed.  But what happens in the event of a breach?  The default is for a dispute to spawn litigation if the parties cannot resolve it on their own.  Ordinarily the non-breaching party must establish with reasonable certainty their actual damages to obtain a money judgment against the breaching party.  This can be quite time consuming and costly.  Particularly in situations where a breach would be clear cut, but establishing the precise amount of actual money damages would involve high cost and delay, parties...Read More

Yesterday, I wrote about the quick progress Washington has seen since the implementation of the “Safe Start Washington” plan.  I focused on (1) the industries re-opened across Washington in Phase 1 and the requirements for businesses operating in those industries, (2) the 8 low density counties that have already advanced to Phase 2, and (3) the three Phase 2 industries for which the Governor has already issued re-opening guidance and requirements.  Shortly after my posting yesterday, the Governor issued guidance and industry-specific requirements for “Professional Services” and “Personal Services” re-opening...Read More

Governor Inslee’s May 4, 2020, amendment to his “Stay Home – Stay Healthy” Order set in motion a re-opening plan called “Safe Start Washington: A Phased Approach to Recovery.”  The Safe Start Washington plan announced that “Phase 1 of reopening Washington begins on May 5, 2020.”  However, as I discussed in my May 5th blog entry, it initially appeared that many of the Phase 1 changes to the Stay Home Order might not begin in earnest until closer to May 15 because the Governor conditioned those changes...Read More

Earlier today (May 13), the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) released important guidance regarding Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan recipients.  Recipients of PPP loans were required to certify that they applied for the loan in “good faith” in order to avoid criminal prosecution.

Today’s guidance places those who received less than $2 million in PPP funds into a “safe harbor” whereby they are automatically deemed to have made the required certification concerning the necessity of the loan request in good faith. Prior to this SBA guidance, many small businesses expressed concern over how they would certify they...Read More

This post is the final in a series of three discussing some of the basic principles of Washington LLCs and the default rules of the Washington Limited Liability Company Act, RCW 25.15 (the “Act”).  The previous two posts discussed the “pick your partner” principle and member dissociation and withdrawal.  This final post in the series discusses the Act’s default rules on transferring or selling a membership interest in a Washington LLC.  Additionally, we will discuss how these default rules further the overarching theme of picking your own partner...Read More

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact almost every facet of daily life in the United States, politicians on the national stage have debated the pros and cons of expanding mail-based voting across the country.  Of course, this has not been an issue in Washington, where state law guarantees that “[e]ach active registered voter of the state, overseas voter, and service voter shall automatically be issued a mail ballot for each general election, special election, or primary.”  RCW 29A.40.010.  But this provision alone does not insulate Washington’s elections from potential impact of...Read More