KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Tellico Village Property Owners Association (TVPOA) has agreed to pay $1,361,992.22 million after it was found to receive a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan that it was not actually eligible for, the United States Department of Justice said.
Congress created the PPP during the pandemic to provide relief to small businesses. Although certain nonprofit organizations were eligible to receive these loans at different times throughout the program, 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations were never eligible, according to the DOJ.
TVOPA, a (501)(c)(4) nonprofit organization applied for and received a PPP loan. The application for the loan required applicants to identify their business type from a list of eligible options or to select "other." The application also required applicants to certify that they were eligible for the loan, the DOJ said.
On TVOPA's application, "C-Corp" was selected as the entity type. TVOPA cooperated with the federal investigation and said that any mistakes on the application were unintentional.
The settlement between TVOPA and the U.S. resolves a lawsuit filed under the whistleblower provision of the False Claims Acts.