personal finance

Furlough fraud: Rishi Sunak's plans questioned as cases skyrocket – how to report to HMRC


As Meg Hillier, a Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, warned: “Our finding of the astonishing lack of economic planning for a pandemic shows how the unacceptable room for fraud against taxpayers was allowed into the Government’s hastily drawn up economic support schemes.”

Rishi Sunak appeared to recognise these issues in his recent Budget, as the Chancellor announced: “We’ll also tackle fraud in our Covid schemes, with £100million to set up a new HMRC taskforce of around 1,000 investigators as well as new measures, and new investment in HMRC, to clamp down on tax avoidance and evasion.”

Iskander Fernandez, Head of White Collar Crime and Investigations and Partner at BLM, commented on this at the time: “The HMRC has gone to great lengths to warn businesses that fraudulent furlough applications are on the rise, so it’s little surprise that a specific task force has been announced now by the Chancellor.

“Billions have been paid out through furlough, with some 10,000 HMRC inquiries currently live.

READ MORE: Furlough creating a “false sense of security” as debt problems arise





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