For thousands of businesses, the Self Employment and furlough schemes were a life support when a full lockdown began in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic; however, the schemes had to be developed quickly and were, at times, being developed and amended in real time. The evolving guidance and swift implementation has meant that, in some cases, businesses who made use of the schemes made errors in their claims, while others unfortunately sought to take advantage of the schemes and make fraudulent claims.

While it has been reported that as many as 27,000 cases were being reviewed for suspected abuse or fraud as early as September 2020, and over 11,000 people who received self-employment grants were sent letters questioning their claims, the government have only recently announced an investment of over £100 million to set up a specialist taskforce. This taskforce is designed to challenge potentially fraudulent COVID-19 support claims and will take on 1,200 members of staff in order to carry out an estimated 30,000 challenges.

Click here Lockyers Business Update_Covid-19 HMRC Enquiries into Support Schemes to read the full article and for links to more information. If the team at Lockyers can help in any way please get in touch or call 01924 278222.