14th June 2021
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has issued the following guidance to employers where they may have missed submitting a furloughing claim (under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme). HMRC may accept late claims if you have all of the following:
- A reasonable excuse
- Taken reasonable care to try and claim on time
- Claimed without delay as soon as you were able to
HMRC has provided the following examples of where a reasonable excuse may be in point and a late claim will be considered:
- Your partner or another close relative died shortly before the claim deadline
- You had an unexpected stay in hospital that prevented you from dealing with your claim
- You had a serious or life-threatening illness, including COVID-19 related illnesses, which prevented you from making your claim (and no one else could claim for you)
- A period of self-isolation prevented you from making your claim (and no one else could make the claim for you)
- Your computer or software failed just before or while you were preparing your online claim
- Service issues with HMRC online services prevented you from making your claim
- A fire, flood or theft prevented you them from making your claim
- Postal delays that you could not have predicted prevented you from making your claim
- Delays related to a disability you have prevented you from making your claim
- An HMRC error prevented you from making your claim
Where a claim deadline has been missed and the claimant has a reasonable excuse, then any late claim should be made via the HMRC portal.
HMRC has also announced that they expect to recover over £1bn of fraudulent or mistakenly claimed furlough payments over the next two years. Employers should review their claims to ensure they have not made any errors in the amounts claimed.