With the Corona economic aid, e.g. bridging aid, November aid and December aid, companies and self-employed people were supported from federal funds in the period from June 2020 to June 2022 if they had experienced a significant decline in sales.
In order to help companies quickly during the pandemic and to secure their existence, the funds should be paid out as quickly as possible. The approval and payment of the funds was therefore mostly provisionally based on forecasts. It was planned to subsequently compare the forecast figures with the actual sales development and the fixed costs incurred. This comparison is carried out by submitting a so-called final settlement. Both the application and the final settlement are carried out by a “third-party auditor”, usually the tax advisor.
After the deadline for preparing and submitting the final accounts had been postponed several times, it will now finally expire on September 30, 2024.
It has happened that applications for Corona economic aid were either submitted via various third-party auditors, for example because the tax advisor changed between several applications, the tax advisor was no longer available in the meantime, or in the case of several companies in an affiliated company, the applications were submitted by different tax advisors for the individual companies.
The final settlement, however, must be carried out or submitted by a single third-party auditor, if necessary by changing. The new third-party auditor must apply for the change on the application platform itself. This is not the responsibility of the company or the self-employed person. However, all the necessary information and data from the documents already submitted must be made available to the tax advisor taking over.
It is possible to change tax advisors even after the final settlement has been made. However, the advisor must be informed of the settlement number of the final settlement package or the customer number of the organisation profile. Otherwise, a change is not possible.
Danger: If no final accounts have been submitted on time by September 30, 2024, the responsible approval authorities are required to immediately initiate recovery measures for the full amount of the aid provided to the companies and self-employed persons.
