Federal Pandemic Program Forgave $809 Million In PPP Loans To White-Shoe Law Firms

Federal officials forgave $809 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans handed out during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to more than 100 of the nation’s top law firms and another $635 million given to hundreds of elite accounting offices, according to a new analysis of government spending to be made public on Dec. 2.

As described by the Department of Treasury, the PPP was established in 2020 to provide “small businesses with the resources they need to maintain their payroll, hire back employees who may have been laid off, and cover applicable overhead.”

The program was administered by the federal Small Business Administration, which made $787 billion in federal loans to companies and firms spanning all industries...

Federal Pandemic Program Forgave $809 Million In PPP Loans To White-Shoe Law Firms

Now, this is an exercise in suppressing all those little things like knee-jerk profanities and railing against the way that politicians just "spend" our money like it was theirs to give to their supporter buddies... I know that years ago my post would have been filled with expletives and anger...

All these loans can be expressed as debt the US taxpayers incurred under the guise of helping small business cope with the world-ending pandemic governance (which decimated small businesses) I have watched first, temporarily closed then completely shuttered family-owned businesses disappear into the ether, along with any chance of future that business represented to the owners.

I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that law firms (and their cousins in accounting firms) had no problem applying for, and evidently getting, this support for [sarcasm on] all of the grief, despair, and loss of profit they had to endure through this 'crisis.' [sarcasm off]

Auditors “found an astonishing $1.4 billion in forgiven PPP loans that flowed to the largest and most successful law and accounting firms across America,” the report stated.

“Today, it is an open question whether many of the firms needed a taxpayer subsidy to ‘save’ any jobs during the Covid-pandemic. Many racked up record revenues while their equity partners made millions of dollars.

“For example, in the years 2020 and 2021, we found equity partners individually received $7 million in profits while their law firms received $10 million in forgiven PPP ‘loans.’ The Guam office of Ernst & Young, a Big Three accounting firm with 365,000 employees, took a $750,000 forgiven loan.

“In 2020, millions of mom and pop businesses on Main Street had to shut down during the forced economic lockdown [occasioned by the pandemic]. So, Congress created the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) to compensate those businesses for their economic losses.

“Firms with 500 employees or fewer met eligibility requirements. However, Congress didn’t anticipate that Biglaw and the largest accounting firms would cash in so profitably.”

emphasis mine.

How did they NOT know? Aren't most of them lawyers?

...The second-biggest law firm beneficiary of PPP loans was the Birmingham, Alabama-based Maynard Cooper & Gale, which received $10.13 million under the pandemic relief program. Even so, the firm’s workforce increased from 247 in 2019 before the pandemic, to 260 in 2020 during the pandemic, and 283 in 2021.

THAT'S IT! I'm going to go and decompress...

Hunter Biden's old firm got $10 million dollars.

Source: nypost.com...

Those were an amazing 2 years. Money flowed and prices were lower than low for many services.

Wow it was known that many big business and wealthy recipients were in the group that took billions of tax dollars, meanwhile many small businesses never made it back, the amount of tax dollars that have been looted from the taxpayer is incredible, we will be hitting rock bottom soon, a bubble will burst, and we the taxpayer will be forced to pay the bill as usual.

The PPP is the worst of programs and it's hypocritical to moan about student loans, yet give out forgivable loans with little accountability. I would say that at least half of PPP loans were misused, given to organizations that didn't need them, or taken by fraud.

Either way, the program shouldn't have happed. I mean it, along with the rest of the bills in 2020 were the inception of the inflation we're seeing today and that's why I find Trump supporters to be the most willfully blind of all voters. The taxpayers shouldn't prop up businesses in any scenario, whether it be forgivable loans, bailouts, or grants.

How they elites redistribute the tax payer money for themselves, that is what all these programs are all about, people are just too blind to see it, while the elite manage to redistribute millions and billions to themselves the tax payer gets pennies soo they keep their mouth shut.

Sounds like the conspiracy theory of COVID gov response becoming a Treasury Looting scheme is true after all ☠️

I wonder who got the most ? 😀

a reply to: xuenchen

I am sure it circles back to the DNC as campaign donations, the best money laundering scam of the century.

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: xuenchen

I am sure it circles back to the DNC as campaign donations, the best money laundering scam of the century.

With much respect, I offer an alternative: The best money laundering scam of the century is called "global banking."

The problem is our belief that the sin belongs only with the sinner, and the one who engenders and even encourages sin walks away guiltless.

a reply to: Maxmars

We already know how much laundering of the tax dollars has been going on with the billions send to Ukraine, I think the crypto scandal tells the story.