At the end of March 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Trade published new calls for support - COVID 2022 programmes.
New invitations on their website to provide aid to selected sectors in order to alleviate impacts of measures adopted to fight the Covid-19 pandemic: programmes COVID 2022 – Sector Aid, and COVID – Uncovered Costs.
This article focuses on the first programme: Covid 2022 – Sector Aid.
The invitation under the programme Covid 2022 – Sector Aid is focused on business entities which were significantly affected by the extraordinary measure of the Ministry of Health approved by Governmental Resolution No. 1028 of 18 November 2021.
This measure and other ones resulted most of all in the restriction of retail sales of goods and provision of services and limitations in the area of tourism and organisation of events (sports, cultural and other events) in order to decrease social contacts. The aim of this invitation is to mitigate negative impacts on entities making business in the respective sectors, manifested as significant drops in revenues, and to provide financial aid to preserve liquidity.
ELIGIBLE APPLICANT, REFERENCE PERIOD AND COMPARISON PERIOD
An eligible applicant must comply with all of the conditions below:
a) He/she is a natural businessperson or a legal entity organised under the private law and conducts business activities under Act No. 455/1991 Coll., on Trading (the Trading Act), as amended, or in a similar manner.
b) He/she is a business entity conducting business activities at least partially in the following areas:
- Provision of food services (including catering), short-term and recreational accommodation services, laundry services, travel agencies and offices,
- Organisers of sports, cultural, conference, fair and other events including business entities in associated technical services specified in more detail in Appendix 1 of the Invitation [1]
c) As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the applicant’s revenues from his/her business activities dropped at least by 50% for the reference (compared) period in comparison to the comparison period. If the claim for a subsidy is up to and includes CZK 1,500,000, the data about the drop in revenues are checked by a person authorised to act on behalf of the company (executive director) and company accountant. If the claim for a subsidy is more than CZK 1,500,000, the data about the drop in revenues must also be checked, except for the above-mentioned persons, by an auditor or a tax advisor. For the purposes of this calculation, revenues mean revenues from own products, services and merchandise (i.e. the entire group of accounts numbered 60);
d) He/she has at least one FTE (full time equivalent) employee.
Except for the above, the applicant must satisfy still other conditions, and the applicant confirms his/her satisfaction by a solemn declaration. [2]
Reference Period and Comparison Period
For the purposes of calculating the aid, the reference period means, in the case of the business sector specified under b) i, a period from 1 November 2021 until 31 December 2021; in the case of business sectors specified under b) ii, a period from 1 November 2021 until 28 February 2022.
In the case of a reference period from 1 November 2021 until 31 December 2021, the comparison period is 1 November until 31 December 2019. If the applicant came into legal existence after 1 November 2019, the applicant may choose as a reference period any two consequent months from 1 November 2019 until 31 October 2021.
The comparison period for sectors b )ii is determined the same way – it is 1 November to 29 February 2020 or in the case where the applicant came into legal existence later, any 4 consequent months from 1 November 2019 until 31 October 2021.
Amount and Calculation of Aid Provided
The Ministry of Industry and Trade allocated total CZK 1,750 mil for the Invitation Covid 2022 – Sector Aid. The maximum amount of aid per one recipient is CZK 3 mil, where for sectors under b) i, the aid will be provided up to the maximum amount of CZK 1.5 mil.
For the purposes of a subsidy, only employees under employment registered with the Czech Social Security Administration as at 1 November 2019, the so-called cooperating persons [3] and executive directors under contracts to perform the office of an executive director are to be regarded as employees.
The amount of aid per one recipient is calculated as follows: CZK 500 times the number of FTE (full time equivalent) employees times the number of days of the reference period.
You can file your applications via AIS MPO [4] IT system from 9 am on 5 April 2022 until 12 am (midnight) on 12 May 2022.
[3] under Act No. 586/1992 Sb., on income taxes (in the case of applicants - natural persons),
