The businesswoman, who received a grant of 500 euros in January, was stunned: the STI demanded her return Business

“So the beauty salon, whose activities were banned after the quarantine, was announced on December 16. and whoever has had to cease their activities as a result of the losses suffered will be deemed not to have suffered and will not be entitled to a subsidy even of those scarce 500 euros. 15 minutes Z.Povilonytė, who runs the beauty salon “Ode to Beauty”, made no secret of his disappointment.

In total, the businesswoman has two small businesses, both of which received a € 500 grant in January from the first business aid package and both were asked to repay the aid on Thursday. The deadline for correcting the VAT returns and reimbursing the subsidy is 10 days.

To the best of your knowledge, many companies have received such letters from the STI requesting reimbursement of the subsidy to the affected company.

VMI 15 minutes confirmed that 2 000 people had sent letters requesting clarification. companies for which 3.7 million were paid. grants in euros. According to the Inspection, this was done when it was established that during the evaluation period they did not experience a decrease in the established mandatory monthly average turnover of at least 30% or did not meet other criteria.

Operations started before the first quarantine

“He covered endless frustration. In fact, I cried, because looking at the news, it seems that the state supports and helps, ”said the small businesswoman who received the letter from STI.

Covered in endless frustration. In fact, I cried because looking at the knowledge, the state seems to support, help.

Z. Povilonytė said that STI’s letter indicated that the subsidy should be repaid because the company’s turnover had not fallen by 30 percent. However, the businesswoman emphasizes that there could not have been such a drop in turnover, since the company was established in July 2019, but the beauty salon only started operating in February 2020.

Less than a month later, on March 16, the first quarantine began. In summer the work of the salon was recovered, and on December 16, after the hardening of the second quarantine, the activity had to stop again.

In January this year, the STI paid a grant of 500 euros to the company. For this reason, the letter that arrived on Thursday demanding the return of this support was like a storm from the clear sky for the businesswoman.

The Ministry of Economy and Innovation, which began to distribute support to affected companies within the framework of the first aid package at the end of January, announced that the measure is aimed at companies whose turnover will fall by at least 30% between January 1 November and January 31 in comparison. to the same period in 2019-2020.

It was also announced that a minimum subsidy of 500 euros would be granted to newly incorporated companies (after November 2019) that did not receive income in March-October 2019, but their activities are included in the list of economic activities restricted by quarantine. . . You can read more about the conditions here.

“Ode to Beauty” received no further state support – last year it unsuccessfully requested compensation for the rent, because the rent of the beauty salon premises costs a thousand euros a month. The request was submitted on time, but upon discovering the errors, Invega no longer allowed them to be corrected.

True, the company received a subsidy for the employee’s salary during the downtime, but ultimately decided to resign. Due to unprofitable activities, as of May 1, the entrepreneur had to close the activities of the beauty salon.

STI: did not meet criteria

The Ministry of Economy and Innovation did not rule on the STI’s requests to companies to return the subsidy received.

Meanwhile, the STI 15 minutes claimed that it had carried out an assessment of the accuracy of the data provided in the application of the companies that received the subsidy. According to the VAT returns submitted by the applicants who received the grant, some companies were not eligible to receive the grant, according to the STI.

The most common reason was that you did not experience a required mandatory average monthly turnover decrease of at least 30% during the evaluation period.

The STI did not comment on the specific case why Odė grožiai was instructed to repay the aid, but made it clear that the company did not meet several criteria, including the fact that it had no employees on November 1, 2019. This condition was supposedly necessary for support. Data from Sodra shows that although there were no employees that month, the company worked 1-3 employees most of the time.

It is true that the question arises as to why the STI failed to warn of the company’s failure to pay a grant of 500 euros in January.

“There are some cases where companies did not meet other criteria mentioned in the description, for example, the company confirmed in its application submitted to” My STI “that its revenue decrease is at least 30 percent, but it turned out that the company has no income, it was registered until 2019 on November 1, 2019 and during the period indicated in the description, that is, 2019. November 1 had no employees and in that case it has no subsidy ”, says the answer.

The STI sent letters to the companies that did not meet the criteria with a request to review the data submitted from the VAT returns and, if it was established that there were errors in the VAT return, correct them and submit the usual irregular procedure. . Companies have 10 business days to do so.

“After the specified deadline date, the tax administrator will re-evaluate the company’s data. If, even then, during the evaluation period, a mandatory 30% is not set for the company. Average monthly drop in turnover, STI will inform the Ministry of Economy and Innovation about the non-compliance of the company with the Description criteria, the company must return the subsidy “, – responds the STI 15 minutes.

Why was the subsidy paid to the ineligible companies? The STI contends that the situation where discrepancies in the data of the companies are identified after the grant payment has occurred in many cases because the companies incorrectly predicted the drop in turnover when applying for the grant.

“This means that when they applied, they predicted more than 30 percent.” As their statements later showed, it was in fact lower or their turnover increased rather than decreased, “said the response.

The STI evaluated the actual data based on the declaration data provided by the companies and informed the companies by letters without establishing a billing cut.