faq
During Corona, the state helped companies with more than 60 billion euros. Now the companies have to prove that they actually needed the money. The billing must be submitted by today.
How much help did the state give out to companies during the corona pandemic?
Bridging or restart aid, November or December aid: Since the outbreak of the corona pandemic in spring 2020, the federal and state governments have put together numerous aid programs – seven for corona economic aid alone, which are now to be billed. In total, around 60.1 billion euros were distributed from these programs. If you add other packages, it was several billion euros more, according to the Federal Ministry of Economics.
What exactly is being billed now?
In order to help companies as quickly as possible during the lockdown, the state made compromises: Anyone who wanted money had to estimate how much their sales would fall due to the pandemic. In most cases, economic aid was transferred based on this forecast.
Now it should be clarified whether companies really needed the money they received in full. Sven Giegold, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics, had already said in July: “The protection of all taxpayers now requires that the correct use of the tax money paid out is now also proven.” This means: Anyone who received too much money because sales fell less sharply should now pay it back. This procedure was announced from the start.
Who decides whether a company has to pay back money?
There is a clear procedure for the so-called final accounting: so-called auditing third parties are involved – in many cases these are the company's tax advisors. Back then you applied for state aid, and now you are also submitting the statement. Ultimately, the decision about repayment or additional payment is made by the responsible authorities in the federal states.
Anyone who has to pay money back to the state has up to six months to do so. Installment payments over a longer period of time are also possible.
How likely is it that entrepreneurs will have to pay money back?
This cannot be definitively quantified. However, one indication is provided by the final accounts that have already been completed – according to the Federal Ministry of Economics, almost 250,000 in number. The result there: Nothing has changed for around a third of the companies applying; their funding has been confirmed. A little more than 40 percent of the companies even received more money from the state as a result of the settlement, an average of around 3,500 euros per company. According to figures from the Federal Ministry of Economics, around a quarter of companies have to pay additional payments, an average of around 7,400 euros.
The Federal Association of Medium-Sized Companies in Germany sees possible repayments as a problem for many companies: a spokesman said this ARD capital studionot least because of the tense global situation, many companies' reserves have been used up. “It would have been a strong signal to waive the repayment of this aid for medium-sized businesses that are under great pressure,” explained the association.
How many statements are still missing?
In total, the Federal Ministry of Economics expects to receive around 860,000 final statements. More than 80 percent were already available by last Thursday. The ministry expects to receive around 90 percent of all invoices by the end of the deadline this Monday. You can feel that the situation is “dynamic”; around 13,000 statements were submitted last Wednesday alone.
It's been a lot of work for tax advisors in Germany in the past few weeks: The President of the German Association of Tax Advisors, Torsten Lüth, spoke at the request of ARD capital studios from a “great effort”. By the way: If you don't submit the final bill, you have to repay the Corona aid in full.
What's next?
Now it's the authorities' turn again: They check the invoices received – and that will take time, usually several months. The German Association of Tax Consultants even assumes that it will have to deal with Corona economic aid for several more years. President Torsten Lüth said they were expecting all sorts of questions from the authorities. “The Corona economic aid will accompany us in our everyday lives for a long time,” explained Lüth.
Incidentally, the federal government assumes that around 700 million euros will be paid back once all the settlements have been completed. However, final figures are no longer expected this year.
