If you thought CJRS calcs had gone away ...

New HMRC guidance on resolving underclaims (not just overclaims)

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As HMRC begin to get stuck into their archeological trawl through everyone's PAYE data looking for CJRS anomalies, you might think you only need to worry about amounts, in HMRC's terminology, that have been overclaimed.  And aside of the faff in (re-)checking your calculations, there are indeed some aspects that not everyone seems to be aware of regarding overclaims:

* You only have until the 28th Oct to submit any adjustments to your claim for Sept 2021 (and it's too late to do this for all previous months);

* If you need to refund to HMRC an overclaimed amount, then you cannot do so via offsetting this against later months ... you must use an online service in order to obtain a unique payment reference number, which must accompany a payment made by one of the 3 standard channels (i.e. a discrete payment).

* If such an adjustment needs to be paid, it must be done by 90 days after the date you received the grant - in order to avoid penalties.

 

BUT it's the scenario where you've managed to UNDERclaim that has the kicker you've probably not been expecting - although it is entirely logical:

* If you have underclaimed for any employee, you must make that value good to the employee (even if the 'missing' amount can no longer be claimed from HMRC)!   

* This is because it is a requirement of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme that the employee receives a minimum of 80% of reference pay (irrespective of claim) ... and failure to comply would invalidate the whole of the original claim.

 

So ... just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, a salutary reminder that there's something circling out there in the deeper water - and it's hungry.

Replies (4)

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By the_drookit_dug
12th Oct 2021 12:19

Think I'll give it a miss.

Got better things to do than agonise over every little detail of claims that I've already agonised about ever little detail over.

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Replying to the_drookit_dug:
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By Hugo Fair
12th Oct 2021 13:13

Totally agree.
I wasn't suggesting any action ... just warning about some of the ramifications that HMRC are announcing (I nearly said 'claiming' as I can't see a lot of legislative basis for their use of "can" and "cannot" throughout their new guidance) - prior to them unleashing their AI bots to pick out employers for more detailed scrutiny.

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Replying to the_drookit_dug:
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By NYB
13th Oct 2021 12:00

So totally agree. Is anyone going thru 18 months worth of claims. At the time it was horrendous. Justwant to forget about CJRS. Will wait to get an inspection and then look on it. But I feel that any HMRC officer wouldnt have a first clue how, at the coal face, to actually apply their horrendous rules. More so on ZERO hours than nice little monthly earning figures.

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By alialdabawi
13th Oct 2021 12:59

Yes, thank you HMRC for informing us, after the end of an 18 month scheme, how to correct errors within 90 days of the filings.

Numpties...

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