Coronavirus Wak Lucerne speaks out in favor of companies regarding hardship allowances

The Economic Affairs and Taxation Committee (Wak) of the Lucerne Cantonal Council has spoken out in favor of companies in the discussion on the repayment of Covid-19 hardship payments. It voted 9 to 4 in favor of exempting some of the companies from the conditional repayment of profits.

Hardship payments made before April 21, 2021, as well as payments where there was no reference to the conditional profit repayment are to be exempted, as the Wak announced on Tuesday. As an argument, the commission cites "trust in the canton of Lucerne as a reliable partner".

This would mean that the canton would forgo a repayment of around seven million francs, while the federal government would forgo 16 million francs, according to the statement. The Wak instructed the government to draw up a corresponding decree, which will later be submitted to the cantonal council.

A four-member minority of the Wak supported the government's approach. The Wak agreed that "effective" and "fair" solutions had to be found for individual cases.

The government envisaged that hardship payments would have to be repaid up to a maximum of the profits made. This affects supported companies that made a profit during the pandemic. This is intended to prevent private profits from being financed by taxpayers' money.

SP considers referendum

The Wak's decision clears the way for the subsidization of private company profits with taxpayers' money, wrote the SP Canton Lucerne in a statement on Tuesday. The Wak's approach also creates new inequalities between legal entities and natural persons. It is considering launching a referendum if the cantonal council approves the proposal,

The party criticizes the fact that Wak does not want to wait for the cantonal court's upcoming decision on the so-called "leading cases". The "leading cases" are intended to assess contentious issues in court proceedings on the basis of a handful of suitable cases instead of conducting many court proceedings at the same time, which are costly for all parties.

SDA