Q & A

Dean Flood, Rowland Hall Chartered Certified Accountants

The furlough scheme remains in place until 30th April. The rules of the scheme remain largely consistent with those previously applied. Applications for furlough payments for periods up to October 2020 are now closed.

COVID-19 INITIATIVES STILL DOMINATE

Unfortunately, the human impact of the COVID pandemic and resulting lockdown give us little to be joyous about, but I am sure we will prevail as the vaccination programme gathers pace.

The government has extended many of the tax and income support programmes to recognise the continued impact of lockdown on the business environment. Reference to the HMR&C website and your local authority websites should provide a relatively easy access to those schemes accessible for you. www.gov.uk/business-coronavirus-support-finder is a useful tool for this purpose.

Publication of Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme Claims

The furlough scheme remains in place until 30th April. The rules of the scheme remain largely consistent with those previously applied. Applications for furlough payments for periods up to October 2020 are now closed.

HMR&C have announced that from the 26th January 2021, they will start publishing details of all employers who are registering claims under the furlough scheme for periods starting on or after 1st December 2020. From February, the publicised data will include the employer’s name, company registration number (if relevant) and an indication of the level of claims within a ‘banded’ range. Employers can register to have their details omitted from the list but only for reasons such as a serious risk of violence or intimidation towards individuals.

In addition to the above, HMR&C have advised that individual employees can obtain details of whether furlough claims have been made in their name through their own individual online tax accounts.

It is clear that the objective of the above is to identify scenarios where fraudulent claims are being made. Time to pay

For some businesses, the next couple of months will be critical in terms of cashflows. Some business owners may be facing high personal tax bills at the end of January following the deferral of July 2020 on account payments.

That may be compounded by the need to settle the deferred VAT liabilities from the initial lockdown period on the Spring of 2020. Those amounts are expected to be settled by the end of March 2021.

Despite HMR&C expecting these payments to be made, they are still acknowledging the difficulties for some businesses due to lockdown and the pandemic. They have therefore retained their ‘time to pay’ facilities to allow tax payers to discuss extended payment terms where necessary.

If any taxpayers (individuals and businesses) feel that they need to access these arrangements, it is strongly recommended that they contact HMR&C as soon as possible. Callers should be forearmed with their business details, Unique tax reference numbers and an outline of how they perceive debts to be settled.

Scam Communications

The concept of scam communications is not new to the tax and general business environment. However, we are now working in a far more remote manner due to lockdown. This means the volume of online communications and their increased use by sectors of the population (that may have previously been reticent to use these communication techniques), has substantially increased the scope for fraudsters to exploit potential weaknesses. This is further exacerbated by the presence of tax return deadlines and financial hardship for some.

Readers should note that HMR&C will not typically contact you by text or email to confirm tax refunds and readers should be extremely cautious should they receive communications of this kind. If in doubt, speak to your appointed advisor or contact HMR&C directly using contact numbers from their website.

Email identity theft is also increasing so readers should be extra vigilant with regard to email communications. Consider whether emails received are from correct addresses. If the language and tone of an email seems different to the norm, don’t hesitate to challenge its authenticity. Never react to a request for payment via email especially if being requested to redirect funds to an unknown account. If in doubt, pick up the phone.