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Furlough abuse drives 70% increase in whistleblowing reports to HMRC in the past two years

Whistleblowing reports to HM Revenue & Customs went up by 70% in the past two years

Andrew Collier
Andrew Collier HR Adviser
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Whistleblowing reports to HM Revenue & Customs went up by 70% in the past two years. 

HMRC's reply to a freedom of information request has confirmed that the increase in reports was mostly driven by people reporting abuse of the government’s furlough scheme.

HMRC received more than 15,000 reports from whistle-blowers in the 12 months up to 1 April 2022, up 13,600 on the previous year. In the year before the pandemic, the number of reports was just 8,900.

Since January 2021, the tax office has made public the names of any businesses that claimed wages via the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, or furlough, and has encouraged people to report anonymously if fraud is suspected.

It is striking that a significant 38% of whistleblowing reports last year were deemed serious enough to warrant further action, with 5,800 cases followed up.

One of the most incredible cases involved Rajanish Garibe, a fraudster in India claiming £27.4 million in furlough payments over 14 months, after registering four companies in London with 2,700 non-existent employees and fake NI numbers and only a virtual mailbox as an UK presence.  Thankfully, HMRC were able to recover £26.5 million through a forfeiture order - following what was believed to be HMRC's largest ever freezing order of bank accounts.  

WorkSmarter recommend any business concerned that they may have uncovered wrongly-claimed furlough payments to seek professional advice. 

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