Dear clients, dear friends,
the December aid as well as the 3rd phase of the interim aid for the period November 2020 to June 2021 have been decided. Interim Aid III brings with it a number of innovations, which we will inform you about very briefly today. In addition, the Federal Ministry of Finance has published an overview of the Corona grants, which is attached to this mail.
1) December Aid
As announced, the November Aid has been extended to the month of December 2020. Extensive explanations regarding the November aid have been sent to you in our email of 13.11.2020. Essentially, the following regulations exist for December:
Eligible applicants:
Eligible for application are companies that had to stop their business operations as of 2.11.2020. Since this is regardless of the organizational form, municipal institutions are also eligible! In addition, companies that regularly generate 80% of their sales with companies that had to close down are eligible to apply.
Amount of the subsidy:
Companies will receive 75% of their average weekly sales from December 2019 per week of closure, with the exception of self-employed persons. They can also use the average weekly sales of the entire year 2019 as a basis. Another exception applies to companies that exist from November 2019 onwards. They can take the average weekly sales from October 2020 or the sales since their foundation as the basis of assessment.
For restaurants with takeout sales, the special rule continues to apply that the 75% subsidy is only granted for in-house sales from December 2019.
The maximum grant is generally 1 million €.
Reduction of the subsidy:
Other government benefits, such as the interim aid or the short-time working compensation, are credited against the subsidy. In addition, the sales actually generated in December 2020 are generally offset, with the following exception - up to 25% of the comparative sales in December 2019 are excluded from the crediting.
Application Procedure:
The application is made electronically via the tax consultant, auditor, accountant or lawyer. An exception is made for self-employed persons, who may submit the application themselves for a maximum subsidy of 5,000 €. The application is currently still in preparation, but should be available by the end of December 2020 / beginning of January 2021.
2) Interim aid III
Eligible applicants for a subsidy program:
Unlike the previous Interim aids I and II, the improved Interim aid III is no longer limited to small and medium-sized companies. Now, all companies with maximum annual sales of 500 million € are eligible to apply if they meet one of the following categories:
1. Companies that are directly or indirectly affected by the additional closures as of Dec. 16, 2020
2. Companies that will continue to be directly or indirectly affected in the new year by the closures agreed on October 28, 2020 (November 2, 2020) and December 13, 2020 (December 16, 2020), respectively
3. Those companies that are not closed but have significant revenue losses (at least 40%) in November / December or even in the new year
4. Furthermore: sales drop of 30% from April to December 2020 or 50% for two consecutive months between April to December 2020
5. Companies that have to close in January to June 2021.
Reimbursable costs:
The catalog of reimbursable fixed costs has been expanded to include the following expenses:
- structural modernization, renovation or reconstruction measures for hygiene measures up to 20,000 €
- 50% of the monthly depreciation of assets
- marketing and advertising costs, max. in the amount of the corresponding expenses in 2019.
The maximum monthly subsidy amount has been increased to 200,000 € (for eligible applicants with sales drop) or 500,000 € (for eligible applicants with closure) per month.
Special feature “New start aid”:
As of now, solo self-employed persons (at least 51% of income from self-employed work) can apply for a one-time lump sum for operating costs in the amount of 25% of the comparative sales as an alternative to itemizing fixed costs. H. v. 25% of the comparative sales in approach bring, the so-called "new start aid". In this way, you receive a one-time amount of up to 5,000 € as a subsidy, which does not have to be repaid in the event of an actual decline in sales. The "new start aid" is not offset to other benefits of the basic income support.
The new start aid is to be paid out as an advance for the months December 2020 to June 2021. However, after the end of the 7-month period, a self-audit of the reference sales for these months must be carried out. Should the actual sales exceed 50% of the reference sales, the subsidy must be repaid on a pro-rata basis (according to a separate scale). However, if the repayment is less than a trivial amount of 500 €, the subsidy does not need to be repaid.
Companies in the event and culture industry can claim cancellation costs for the period from March to December 2020. Both internal and external cancellation costs are eligible. Special funds are also to be set up for the cultural industry. Further details are to follow in the coming weeks.
Procedure:
As in the past, applications for Interim aid III must be submitted electronically via tax advisors, auditors or lawyers and are expected to be possible from mid / late January 2021.
The solo self-employed also have the option of submitting the application themselves if the subsidy is max. of 5,000 €.
Please contact us if you would like to apply for the subsidy!
You can find further information about November, December and new start aid here:
Best regards