HMRC has this week published its final guidance on making a late or an amended claim under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). The CJRS closed on 30 September 2021 and 14 October 2021 was the last date to make a claim for September 2021. Any amendments in respect of claims for September 2021 had to be submitted on or before 28 October 2021.

 

The new guidance provides that, for claim periods from 1 November 2020, HMRC may accept late claims or amendments in "certain circumstances". However, the new guidance makes some changes and clarifications:

 

 - It reinstates a requirement for employers to contact HMRC before submitting a late claim and extends this requirement to amended claims. The requirement in respect of late claims was previously removed on 17 June 2021. As soon as an employer is ready to make a late claim or an amendment, it needs to check if it has a "reasonable excuse" (these excuses remain unchanged but have moved from the Claim guide to the new guidance) and then contact HMRC's helpline, having ensured that it has all the information needed to process its claim, to check with an adviser if its late claim or amendment can be made. If the employer's reasonable excuse is accepted, HMRC will process the claim over the telephone.
- It suggests that the same reasonable excuses will apply to amended claims as to late claims, something that had not been explicitly addressed in previous guidance. While the title of the new guidance refers only to late claims, amendments are referred to throughout the body of the guidance and only one set of reasonable excuses (those detailed in the Claim guide previously) is included.
- As before, employers must have taken reasonable care to try to claim on time and make a claim as soon as their reasonable excuse no longer applies.

In short, it would appear that whilst officially the deadline has long since passed, employers may still have an opportunity to submit late claims or amend historic claims and, where they wish to do so, they should contact the HMRC helpline as a matter of priority.   For employers who believe they erroneously made claims, this may present one final opportunity to rectify the position before the investigations that are being purported are rolled out in earnest.