Tuesday, March 9th, 2021
Suspected fraud
Federal government stops paying corona aid
The federal government has stopped paying corona aid funds to companies for the time being. The reason for this are suspected cases in which money could have been illegally obtained, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced. The investigative authorities are already involved.
The federal government has stopped the payment of corona aid for the time being because of suspected fraud. A spokeswoman for the responsible ministry of economics told ntv that payments on account were currently being examined and "stopped at short notice". The reason is that in some cases there is a suspicion that "unlawful state aid money was obtained by fraudulently for the Corona aid". However, the payments would be "available again shortly".
"As soon as we became aware of irregularities, we informed the responsible bodies and criminal investigation authorities," the ministry said. These have already started investigations. Unfortunately, more details on suspected fraud cases could not be given "in view of the ongoing investigations".
However, the ministry also announced that the processing and disbursement of bridging aid II and November and December aid would continue to take place "in the regular specialist procedure by the federal states' approval offices". The latter are sales compensation for companies that were forcibly closed during the Corona crisis, the latter subsidies for fixed costs. Much assistance can only be requested from tax consultants, auditors or lawyers. According to the report, the amount of damage is still unclear.
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