HMRC slated for ‘lack of ambition’ to recover £4bn furlough fraud

11 Feb 2022

HMRC has been criticised for its lack of ambition in tackling covid fraud related to the furlough and self employed support schemes as £4bn is unlikely to be recovered

Following a series of hearings, a report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has indicated that only a third of the error and fraud in Covid-19 support payments would be recovered from a total fraud amount of £6bn.

The PAC report stated: ‘HMRC is not doing enough to get back the money lost through error and fraud in Covid-19 support payments.’

HMRC’s unambitious plans for recovering overpayments of Covid-19 support could lead to government writing off at least £4bn.

Dame Meg Hillier MP, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: ‘The PAC is concerned about how long HMRC will be playing catchup to get back to revenue collection levels before the pandemic.

‘The level of fraud and error in furlough that employers will get away with is a real concern. What signal does it send when HMRC rolls over on billions of pounds of fraud and error directly related to Covid support packages? With the current parlous state of the public finances we can ill-afford to be so cavalier over so much taxpayers’ money.

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