My wife's small store (two owners, no employees) was unable to figure out the PPP paperwork, threw up their hands and said 'screw it' and just got on with figuring out how to reopen. I think the smaller the business, and the more they depended on that business to pay the bills, the less likely they had the time and resources to navigate the paperwork.

The funny (or sad) thing is, "small" firms that are hedge funds also managed to apply and because they often have tax accountants on retainer, they had an easy time doing the paperwork!

What paperwork? All PPP requested was w-2 data and rent/payroll information. If you run a legal business, you have these things on hand constantly.

My wife and business partner had no payroll, because they do things themselves. Some people were telling her she could still get PPP, but it was not possible to get an informed bank human on the line to ask about it, and then all the money was gone and she moved on.

If this was the very first round of ppp, I believe that banks got up to speed after a few weeks, and more money was found, so the situation improved considerably.

You might be surprised how much money is made and exchanged under the table which makes negotiating these things precarious for some businesses. The negative economic impacts when these businesses die are still felt regardless of if they cheat on their taxes.

I think we're discovering now that all that was needed is Photoshop

A counter example, my neighbor owns a small drycleaning business and was able to navigate the paperwork. He has a long-time relationship with a particular local bank and I think someone there helped him navigate.

>not to mention trusting the government and banking system to take care of forgiving the loan when all the conditions were met

This concern could have been allayed by keeping the funds in a bank account until certain of forgiveness. Absent said forgiveness one repays the loan using the retained funds.

This assumes that the funds were not needed in the first place.