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Comment by rco8786 | Hacker News Reader

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rco8786·

Worth noting that they will owe this back unless they can show it was used for payroll purposes.

How they got that much money in the first place is a definite mystery though.

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What if they go bankrupt after generously paying employees?

That would be considered "mala fides" and the court would likely hold the officers/directors liable for the loan amount. Also, prior to filing for bankruptcy any attorney worth his spit will advise his client to fully repay or continue paying obligations to the US government. US government-backed loans are very difficult to completely discharge in a bankruptcy.

perhaps it encoded in the PPP law, but I wonder if this could be sidetracked by bookeeping, using PPP money to pay people, and investing that money you would have used toward R&D or something.

Of course. That's what the huge scandal is about. $Billions going to wealthy political insiders who don't need it to pay furloughed employees.

How does this actually work? Is this effectively "Free Payroll" for a few months or is it more complicated than that?

It is, yes. If you keep the same headcount and use at least 60% of it for payroll (not exactly clear how you prove that since money is fungible), it is essentially a stimulus check

It shouldn't be too hard to prove. Every time a company writes a payroll check the government knows exactly how much it was for and who got it. Seems like simple math.

Yes, but an entirely different branch of government is who knows about it. Don't overestimate the ability of two disparate departments of an extremely large organization to communicate with one another.

Simple math, except it might take years for them to compute it... That's why you generally want to keep your tax records for at least 3 years.

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