HMRC clarifies purpose of nudge letters on CJRS

HMRC is investigating possible abuse of the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) as has been highlighted in articles in Taxation.

A particular area of concern has been the department’s use of nudge letters.

The ATT said: ‘In general HMRC is not seeking to identify innocent errors. It has been focusing its compliance efforts where its risk profiling indicates there could be a potentially abusive claim. However it is inevitable that some of those who consider that they have claimed in good faith may also be selected for review.’

It added that members had been in touch with concerns about the scale of the work required in some cases to check large numbers of individual calculations. Indeed ‘some agents reported to us that they felt that without knowing what HMRC was looking for they were potentially looking for a needle in a haystack. Requests to...