Redstone Government Consulting Blog | Small Business Compliance (5)

SBA Extends the Repayment Date Again – May 18, 2020

On May 13^th the Small Business Administration (SBA) updated its Frequently Asked Questioned (FAQs) – adding Questions 46 and 47.  Question 47 extends the safe harbor (repayment) date to May 18th.  Question 46 is very interesting; it lays out the SBA and Department of Treasury plan to review certifications of the necessity of the loans. 

The most common CAS (Cost Accounting Standards) exemption for most businesses is the small business exemption.  Most contractors understand that as long as they’re small, CAS is a non-issue.  What happens when you’re approaching your NAICS cap and headed toward the dreaded “other than small” status?

How would you feel if you had unlimited access to all the resources Redstone Government Consulting had to offer?  Relief?  Security?  Control?  Protected?  Re-focused?

FAR Part 31.205 -1 – Public Relations and Advertising Costs

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” (American Marketing Association)

“Advertising is the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements.” (Merriam-Webster)

“Public relations (PR) is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” (Public Relations Society of America (PRSA))

It’s everyone’s least favorite time of year.  That’s right, tax season.  For those of us who no longer work in public accounting, this time of year is now a welcome reprieve; although for us, it also marks the start of incurred cost season.  If you’re not sure what an Incurred Cost Submission is or have questions about that topic, visit our website for a variety of resources.

A recent ASBCA decision (No 61583) confirms that Government benevolence does not extend to penalties associated with a contractor’s final indirect cost rate proposal (FICRP) which included expressly unallowable indirect costs. In one case, the issue was unallowable legal costs incurred as a result of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation of the contractor, which was triggered by information suggesting that the contractor claimed indirect salaries for an individual whose services were as the housekeeper for the owners of the company and thus unallowable as costs allowable to Government contracts. 

With its January 25^th decision in SuperShuttle DFW Inc., the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) altered its stance on the independent contractor standard. In a 3-1 vote, the NLRB amended its previous decision in FedEx Home Delivery (2014), asserting that a worker’s classification under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) should depend largely on the traditional common-law standard rather than economic factors.

The 2018 EEO-1 reporting deadline, originally set for March 31, 2019, has been extended to May 31, 2019 due to the recent government shutdown. The EEOC, which planned to open the 2018 EEO-1 filing website during the second or third week of January 2019, closed its offices during the shutdown, and is now expected to launch in March. As employers wait for the filing website to launch, they may want to proactively gather employment data from the fourth quarter of 2018 so they will be prepared to file their EEO-1 report in a timely manner.

In the last article, I talked about some of the early considerations for beginning the path toward your first government contract.  I would encourage you to take a look here before diving in on the next major question to answer when pursuing your first government contract.  That question is: 

For over a decade I’ve had the opportunity to work with many contractors pursuing their first government contract.  In my role as the VP of Special Projects at Redstone GCI many companies that I routinely assist are in the process of acquiring their first contract or in the very early stages of contract performance.  While I do work with small businesses going through the process of initial contract pursuit and mature government contractors, most companies that I work with are larger commercial or international companies.  I like to think of the role that our team provides as a voice of reason providing a measured approach to compliance to ensure the costs for barriers to entry (e.g. DFARS Business Systems) into the U.S. federal market are recoverable by the company.