In the year to 31 March 2022, HMRC received over 15,000 reports from employees who suspected their employers of being involved in tax evasion or fraud – up 11% over the previous year. Pinsent Masons attributes at least some of the increase to cases of furlough fraud. HMRC has made job retention scheme data publicly available, and employees can check whether support payments were claimed for them via their personal tax account. Such information effectively facilitates the anonymous reporting of concerns by employees.
Andrew Sackey, Tax Fraud investigations Partner at Pinsent Masons, said: ‘A combination of factors from public outrage over furlough fraud, to individual employee disgruntlement, has led increasing numbers of workers to report their employers to HMRC on a scale we haven’t seen before.
‘It is vital that corporates thoroughly check that their managers respected the rules of the various furlough schemes, by their actions and not just by the top level messaging that was in place at the time. There is an ongoing risk that a rogue manager abused of the system without the knowledge of the centre – and a disgruntled employee (or ex-employee) could report the business for it’, he added.
In the year to 31 March 2022, HMRC received over 15,000 reports from employees who suspected their employers of being involved in tax evasion or fraud – up 11% over the previous year. Pinsent Masons attributes at least some of the increase to cases of furlough fraud. HMRC has made job retention scheme data publicly available, and employees can check whether support payments were claimed for them via their personal tax account. Such information effectively facilitates the anonymous reporting of concerns by employees.
Andrew Sackey, Tax Fraud investigations Partner at Pinsent Masons, said: ‘A combination of factors from public outrage over furlough fraud, to individual employee disgruntlement, has led increasing numbers of workers to report their employers to HMRC on a scale we haven’t seen before.
‘It is vital that corporates thoroughly check that their managers respected the rules of the various furlough schemes, by their actions and not just by the top level messaging that was in place at the time. There is an ongoing risk that a rogue manager abused of the system without the knowledge of the centre – and a disgruntled employee (or ex-employee) could report the business for it’, he added.
