Status: 08/29/2021 6:55 p.m.
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Small business owners have now voluntarily repaid almost every tenth euro of the immediate Corona aid they received. The Federal Ministry of Economics received repayments of 911 million euros.
The state wanted to support companies in the Corona crisis quickly and unbureaucratically in order to save them from bankruptcy. In the spring of last year, the federal government promised 50 billion euros in immediate corona aid, 18 billion euros of which were made available in the 2020 budget. According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, 14.1 billion euros had been paid out to a good 1.8 million companies affected by the Corona restrictions by the end of 2020.
Bavaria paid back a lot
Many companies are now doing better. That is why they repaid part of the aid. A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Economics confirmed a newspaper report that voluntary repayments of 911 million euros had now been received. In addition, there would be 322 million euros in reclaims that the states could have obtained. That makes a total of 1.3 billion euros in immediate corona aid that has been repaid so far, almost a tenth.
A lot of money came back from Bavaria. As the “Bild am Sonntag” found out, the Bavarian companies paid back a total of around 190 million euros. However, only 15.3 million euros came back from Schleswig-Holstein.
The emergency aid was the first support for solo self-employed and small business owners in the Corona crisis. They were intended to secure the economic existence of companies and the self-employed and to bridge acute liquidity bottlenecks. Personnel costs and private living costs could not be covered with the money.
33 billion euros spent on aid
In addition to emergency aid, Berlin is now also providing bridging aid for companies in need. According to “Bild am Sonntag”, around 18 billion euros have already been paid out for this. In total, the federal government has so far spent at least 33 billion euros on corona aid, the paper writes.
The generous aid from the federal government has also been partially taken advantage of. The simple online process attracted some scammers. Nationwide, investigators are investigating at least 6,900 suspected cases of fraud in connection with Corona emergency aid.
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