"Good news for companies": Corona aid will be paid out again

Friday March 12th 2021

"Good news for companies"
Corona aid will be paid out again

For many companies, they are the only way to get through the lockdown without major economic damage. After several cases of fraud, the federal government stops paying out the corona aid. Now the Federal Ministry of Economics is announcing: The money will flow again in full.

Companies affected by the Corona crisis will now again receive advance payments from the federal government as part of November, December and Bridging Aid III. "The advance payments for the Corona aid programs will be resumed today," said the Federal Ministry of Economics in Berlin. These had to be stopped at short notice beforehand due to cases of fraud. According to the ministry, the regular payouts were never interrupted. This ensures that all payments are "made in full" again.

Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier from the CDU spoke in the "Rheinische Post" of good news for companies. The federal government stopped payments at the end of last week after several cases of fraud. According to the ministry, the brief interruption of the advance payments was "legally required and necessary" in order to check irregularities and to take precautions in exchange with the criminal investigation authorities, but also with the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the Federal Ministry of Finance To prevent repetition of such fraud attempts in the future.

As of Friday morning, around 9.6 billion euros in aid have been transferred to those affected since November 2020. With the November and December aid, 96 percent of the advance payments are already in the accounts of the recipients. The rest of the November and December aid will now be paid out by the federal states. These are sales compensation for forcibly closed companies. Bridging aid III supports companies, self-employed persons and freelancers with grants towards fixed costs.

In the "restart aid" for self-employed people, 88,913 applications with a volume of 528 million euros have been made, it said. 493 million euros and thus almost 94 percent of the requested amount have already been paid out. The Ministry of Economic Affairs announced last week that "in some cases" there was a suspicion that government aid funds were illegally obtained. This involves down payments, so to speak advances on state aid, and regular payments. According to media reports, the fraud is about false identities of the applicants. For companies, these must be tax consultants, auditors or lawyers.