US COVID-19 RELIEF FUND WENT TO FIRMS THAT AVOIDED PAYING TAXES

US taxpayers may be furious to learn that the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) meant to save small firms convulsed by the pandemic and help them to keep workers on the payroll benefited companies that have paid no taxes at all, enjoyed tax breaks, or used their offshore havens to avoid paying taxes.

In all, Reuters’ analysis of public data found around 110 publicly traded companies have each received $4 million or more in emergency aid from the program, Tim Bergin and Lawrence Delevigne wrote on May 29, 2020.

Of those subject to taxes, 12 of the companies recently used offshore havens to cut their tax bills, the analysis found. All together, these 12 received more than $104 million in loans from U.S. taxpayers. Seven of them paid no US tax at all for the past year.

The program, which provides low-interest loans that are forgivable if companies use most of the money to pay employees, has been widely criticized for problems ranging from early bottlenecks that prevented small businesses from receiving money, to confusion that led millions of dollars to be handed out to relatively affluent firms. Last month Zagg Inc, a Utah-based company that makes mobile device accessories, received more than $9.4 million in cash from PPP. That wasn’t the only help Zagg had from the government lately. Last year, it received a $3.3 million tax refund and racked up US tax credits worth $7 million, its public filings show. It made $6 million in profit for 2019, but paid no tax in the US as it booked much of its profit through small firms in far-off Ireland and the Cayman Islands.