HM Revenue & Customs has advised MPs on the Public Accounts Committee that it estimates that between 5 and 10 per cent of furlough monies has been wrongly awarded. The scheme has paid 80 per cent of the pay for workers, up to a maximum of £2500 pcm, on furlough since March has cost the country £35.4bn.
HMRC permanent secretary Jim Hara said: “We have made an assumption for the purposes of our planning that the error and fraud rate in this scheme could be between 5 and 10 per cent. That will range from deliberate fraud through to error.”
He added; “What we have said in our risk assessment is we are not going to set out to try to find employers who have made legitimate mistakes in compiling their claims, beacuse this is obviously something new that everybody had to get to grips with in a very difficult time. Although we will expect employers to check their claims and repay any excess amount, what we will be focusing on is tackling abuse and fraud.”
Around 8000 calls have been received on HMRC’s dedicated fraud hotline and as a result the HMRC is investigating 27,000 cases where it is believed serious errors have been made in the amount employers have claimed.
It has been reported across the media that some businesses have claimed furlough monies whilst expecting their employees to turn up for work as usual.
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