HMRC is continuing its check on Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) claims. It’s published further guidance about correcting errors. What’s the full story?

New guidance

In August 2022 HMRC provided new guidance regarding the correction of Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) claims in the form of a Q&A (see The next step ). It looks at common situations where employers might not be sure if they need to repay all or part of the CJRS grant they received.

Key questions and answers. In addition to answering several questions about the acceptable methods for working out CJRS entitlement HMRC gives the following guidance about repaying overclaims:

  • whether an overclaimed CJRS grant resulted from an error or for another reason, you must follow the same procedure for reporting the excess claim
  • if you acted on advice from HMRC which resulted in an excessive grant payment and can provide evidence, you don’t need to correct your claim
  • HMRC won’t usually ask for evidence that you furloughed employees because your business was adversely affected by coronavirus, unless there’s a wider investigation into your claim
  • while you should have had a furlough agreement in place before the first day of a claim period, HMRC accepts that written confirmation of the agreement could be made up to three months after the end of each version of the scheme

HMRC won’t actively look for cases of innocent error or investigate every potential error. However, where amounts are identified during an enquiry you might have to repay them even if they resulted from a non-deliberate error.

Tip. You can easily access details of your CJRS grants from HMRC’s website (see The next step ). Tip. If you repay any CJRS grants you’ve received you’ll need to amend the corresponding tax return to reflect it. This will reduce your tax bill.

The guidance gives information on checking your CJRS claims and what to do if you find an error. It also says that HMRC won’t expect you to repay excessive claims if they were based on advice it gave you.

The next step

How to find details of your claims
HMRC’s guidance on CJRS

This article has been reproduced by kind permission of Indicator – FL Memo Ltd. For details of their tax-saving products please visit www.indicator-flm.co.uk or call 01233 653500.

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