Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

SBA to adjust small business size standards for inflation

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The interim rule increases all small business revenue-based size standards, allowing many businesses to regain small business status or to remain a small business for longer.

TAKEAWAYS

  • SBA is increasing the revenue-based size standards to account for inflation.
  • This will allow many advanced small businesses to remain small longer and may allow other businesses that recently lost their small business status to qualify again as small.
  • The interim rule will go into effect on August 19, 2019, prior to the close of the comment period on September 16, 2019.

On July 18, 2019, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) issued an interim final rule adjusting the revenue-based size standards for small business to account for inflation.  The rule affects all small businesses, and will take effect on August 19, 2019.

Continue reading at:  Pillsbury

Impacts of SBA’s proposed rule changing size status calculation

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The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently issued a Proposed Rule implementing the Small Business Runway Extension Act (the Act).  The proposal changes the calculation of a firm’s average annual receipts for purposes of determining eligibility for contracts set aside for small businesses.  Under the current rule, the SBA averages a company’s annual receipts for the preceding three years in order judge whether the company qualifies as a small business or has exceeded the applicable size standard.  If implemented, the Proposed Rule will expand the look-back period to five years.  Companies wishing to comment on the Proposal have until August 23, 2019.

This article examines the effect of the Rule on transactional work involving government contractors.

Summary of the Proposed Rule’s Impacts

The SBA’s size standards establish eligibility for a variety of federal small business assistance programs such as the SBA’s 8(a) Business Development (BD) program, the Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZone) program, the Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) program, the Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB) program and the Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB) program.  The size standards use annual receipts to determine eligibility for some industries, and use number of employees for others.  The Proposed Rule does not change the calculation method for employee-based standards.

By changing the calculation period from average annual receipts from three to five years, the SBA seeks to allow mid-sized businesses who have just exceeded size standards to regain their small business status, and for advanced small businesses close to exceeding the size standard to retain their small business status for a longer period.  

Continue reading at:  Holland & Knight

SBA OHA: for calculating receipts, look to tax returns

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To calculate a company’s size under a receipts-based NAICS code, the SBA will add the company’s total income to its costs of goods sold, as those amounts are reported on its tax returns.  In fact, the SBA’s regulations are clear that it must use these reported amounts to determine a company’s size status.

What happens, then, when a company’s taxes show “income” that might not really reflect money in the company’s accounts?  The SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals recently considered this question, and affirmed a company’s ineligibility based on the income reported in its tax returns.

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon Blog

 

SBA issues proposed rule implementing Small Business Runway Extension Act

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The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) just issued its long-anticipated Proposed Rule implementing the Small Business Runway Extension Act (the Act).  In a previous Holland & Knight blog post, they discussed the SBA’s position that the Act would not be effective until the rulemaking process was completed.  If implemented, the Proposed Rule will modify the SBA’s method for calculating annual average receipts used to prescribe size standards for small businesses.  Specifically, the SBA proposes to change its regulations so that a five-year averaging period (instead of three years) is used when calculating the annual average receipts for all SBA receipts-based size standards and other agencies’ proposed size standards for service-industry firms.

Notably, however, the SBA is proposing to restrict the benefit of this change.

First, SBA takes the position in the commentary to the Proposed Rule (consistent with its previous positions and described more fully below) that the change does not go into effect until its rulemaking is completed. Second, the SBA states that the change will not be applied retroactively when it considers size appeals so that SBA will review a size challenge in accordance with the size standard in effect at the time of the challenged company’s certification. Third, the SBA is not changing non-SBA size standards and leaves such changes to the individual agencies. Further, the SBA has not abandoned its position that the Act does not mandate this change. The SBA states that it is only proposing these rules in the interests of economy and because the new rules do not conflict with the SBA’s existing statutory authority and is consistent with Congress’ intent.

The SBA also points out that while this change will benefit growing small businesses, it could detrimentally impact large businesses that are losing revenue. For those businesses, the longer look-back period may cause them to take longer to regain small business size status.

Finally, SBA’s commentary reiterates its position that receipts of a former division count when determining size status while the receipts from a concern’s former subsidiary do not. There was no additional language in the proposed rule to reflect this sentiment, but contractors and practitioners should take notice.

Continue reading at:  Holland & Knight

SBA disappoints many growing small businesses by stating that new statutory 5-year period for eligibility is not effective yet

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Late last year, President Trump signed into law H.R. 6330, the Small Business Runway Extension Act of 2018 (the “Runway Extension Act”).  As detailed in our client alert on the Runway Extension Act, this law extends the measurement period for determining whether a contractor qualifies as a small business concern under revenue-based size standards from an average of the most recently completed five fiscal years, rather than the long-standing three-year measurement period. It is anticipated that many growing firms, which had or would soon come to exceed the revenue threshold applicable to their principal NAICS code(s), will gain additional years of “small business” status by including (often much lower) revenue totals from 4 and 5 years ago to determine their average annual revenue.

We noted that the Runway Extension Act amends the Small Business Act without expressly requiring implementation by the Small Business Administration (SBA), thereby allowing contractors reasonably to take the position that the Runway Extension Act is immediately effective, absent contrary guidance from the SBA.

In a move sure to disappoint the many small but growing services firms that Congress intended to help by passing the Runway Extension Act, SBA has now issued such contrary guidance.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=771894

See our earlier article on this subject at: https://gtpac.org/2018/12/20/bill-changes-small-business-size-measurement-term-from-3-to-5-years/ 

Bill changes small business size measurement term from 3 to 5 years

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On Monday of this week (Dec. 17, 2018), the president signed the “Small Business Runway Extension Act of 2018” into law.   The new law changes the basis on which a business determines whether or not it meets the federal definition of a “small business.”

Our friends at Koprince Law, LLC have published two articles about this change, providing details on how the size status under revenue-based NAICS codes will now be calculated using a five-year average instead of the longstanding three-year average.

As they point out, for some contractors, the new law is great news, as it will allow them to stay small longer.  For others, the opposite is true: the law could force those companies to stay large longer, or even change their self-certifications from “small” to “other than small” in SAM.

Read their articles here:

SBA’s OHA clarifies negative control restrictions – But do the new SDVOSB regulations limit its impact?

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Between new regulations from the Small Business Administration (SBA) and decisions from the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA), the limits of acceptable actions by small business owners set on maintaining their small business size status continues to change.

Most recently, OHA issued a noteworthy decision that clarifies restrictions on negative control of small businesses, including what actions it considers “extraordinary actions” and what actions are ordinary actions related to the daily control of a company. OHA’s decision in Size Appeal of Southern Contracting Solutions III, LLC, SBA No. SIZ-5956 (2018) is helpful in understanding the parameters of permissible negative control since OHA provided its clearest list to date of “extraordinary actions” and “ordinary” actions essential to the daily operation of the company.

However, it is important to note that the impact of the ruling, as far as service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs), will be limited in light of the new SBA and VA regulations.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=750078

5 questions answered about size protests

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Wouldn’t you like to know five things about size protests and appeals?

Matthew Schoonover, partner at Koprince Law LLC, recently wrote an interesting article about size protests, specifically answering five questions you need to know about.  These are the questions he posed:

  1. What is a size protest?
  2. Who can challenge a company’s size?
  3. How are size protests decided?
  4. Can I appeal an adverse size determination?
  5. What else should I know about size protests and appeals?

Click here to read the answers to these questions: http://smallgovcon.com/five-things/size-protests-and-appeals/

Yes, an agency can change the NAICS code from one iteration of a contract to the next

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Click image above to open SBA’s Size Standards table.

As the incumbent contractor, you’re excited to bid on the successor contract.  The day it’s posted, you dash to fbo.gov, pull up the solicitation, and breathe a sigh of relief: the contract is still exclusively a small business set-aside.

But wait!  Under the assigned NAICS code your business doesn’t fall below the size standard.

Can the agency change the NAICS code from one iteration of the contract to another?  Sure, so long as the selected NAICS code meets the regulatory standard.

In NAICS Appeal of STG, Inc., SBA No. NAICS-5936 (2018), OHA considered a solicitation, issued by the Department of the Army, for “[n]on-personal information technology (IT) services and support requirements.” The contracting officer assigned the procurement NAICS code 541513, Computer Facilities Management Services, which carries a $27.5 million size standard. STG, the incumbent contractor, disagreed with that selection. It contended that the NAICS code, assigned to the existing contract, was the correct one, namely NAICS code, 517110 (now NAICS code 517311), Wired Telecommunications Carriers, with a 1,500-employee size standard.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/uncategorized/yes-an-agency-can-change-the-naics-code-from-one-iteration-of-a-contract-to-the-next/

Meeting the definition of a small business concern — A checklist

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This is a  Checklist for existing or prospective federal government contractors to determine whether they can meet the definition of a small business concern (SBC) under the Small Business Act (SBA).

This Checklist includes the definitional thresholds and size standards for SBCs.

This Checklist can also be used to determine if an SBC can qualify under a specific small business category, including:

  • the 8(a) Business Development Program,
  • a Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB),
  • a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB),
  • a Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB),
  • an Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB), and
  • a Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) SBC.

See the Checklist and related details at: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/meeting-the-definition-of-a-small-42284/ 

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