Austrian companies have probably received far too much support during the corona crisis. After reviewing COFAG data published in October, the Momentum Institute estimates the “overfunding” to be as much as €598 million. This amount should be seen as the “absolute lower limit”, according to an analysis by the think tank.
At the end of October 2022, the Covid-19 Financing Agency (COFAG) published new data on the Corona aid payments. Since then, the transparency database contains all grants above 10,000 euros that have been processed through COFAG.
7999 annual accounts examined
Momentum compared 7,999 annual accounts of companies from 2020 and 2021 with the government grant. In total, this concerns subsidies worth 1.18 billion euros, which Momentum has assessed for economic necessity.
Momentum counted that part of the subsidy amount above which the company made a profit as “overfunding”. The organization did not count the part of the payments that covered the losses. According to Momentum, more than two-thirds of the companies surveyed were over-funded in 2020 and as much as 85 percent in 2021.
Source: Krone
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