Furlough - up to £3.5bn could have been wrongly paid out (so far)

Yesterday, the Chief Executive at HMRC, Jim Harra gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee about 'tackling the tax gap'. He was asked about the furlough scheme and said that HMRC were working on the assumption that the error and fraud rate could be between 5% and 10%. On current figures, that means that  somewhere between £1.75bn and £3.5bn could have been wrongly claimed. And, of course those figures are likely to increase as the scheme still has two months left to run.

Mr Harra said that HMRC would concentrate its efforts on finding those businesses that have deliberately over-claimed, but he didn't say how much, he believes the government has lost to fraud rather than to mistake. 

As we reported last month, businesses are now expected to check their records to make sure their claims are accurate. If you've claimed more than you should have, you have 90 days to notify HMRC. If fail to do so and are caught, you can be fined and named and shamed in a public register. More details are available here.

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By 16 August, 9.6 million people had been put on government-supported furlough, with 1.2 million employers claiming the support.”