Smaller businesses across England received £21.3bn through the Covid-19 local authority business support grants scheme, but fraud levels were high. Estimates show that an estimated £1.03bn of grants were made fraudulently, but the BEIS report does not address the fraud issue. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee warned that local authorities should have made…
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Three out of five companies expect to increase their prices in the next three months due to the continuing supply chain disruption, soaring inflation, and rising energy costs The 58% of businesses that reported the price increase in the British Chambers of Commerce’s (BCC) Quarterly Economic Survey (QES) is the highest proportion on record. The…
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The Chancellor has announced a £1bn support package including grants for the hospitality sector and a sick pay rebate scheme as omicron variant spreads Businesses in the hospitality and leisure sectors in England will be eligible for one-off grants of up to £6,000 per premises, plus more than £100m discretionary funding will be made available…
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The latest figures on use of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme show that 11.7m jobs were supported by furlough throughout the pandemic, highlighting the risk of HMRC investigations Since the start of the scheme in March 2020 a total of 11.7m jobs have been supported by the CJRS at various times and the scheme was…
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The government’s measures to prevent fraud in its bounce back loan scheme (BBL) have been labelled inadequate by National Audit Office (NAO) and were introduced too late. A report by the government’s spending watchdog estimated that £4.9bn of the £47bn that was given out as part of the Covid-19 small business support scheme was…
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HMRC stopped less than £30m worth of furlough claims in the first year of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) Figures obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed that in the financial year to the end of March 2021 HMRC blocked 3,578 claims for furlough money, totalling £28.5m. Over the same period, HMRC…
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A third of UK owner-managed businesses report lower cash reserves now than when going into the pandemic but a worrying percentage do not plan to pay back covid loans. However, on the downside a fifth say they will be unlikely to repay government backed borrowing, finds research from accountancy firm Kreston Reeves. The research published…
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With the UK’s tax debt more than double pre-pandemic levels, current staffing at HMRC is unlikely to be enough to manage the increased tax debt workload warns National Audit Office (NAO) A report by the NAO states that even though HMRC intends to recruit 1,000 full-time staff in 2021-22 to tackle debt collection, the tax…
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The number of people on furlough fell to a record low during its last month of operation with a further 210,000 coming off the scheme according to the latest figures Half of the 1.1m people still on the Coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) at the end of September were on a flexible furlough arrangement. The…
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The latest red flag research by Begbies Traynor recorded that 562,550 businesses were in ‘significant financial distress’ in the third quarter 2021 (Q3) The figures show that the numbers have fallen 14% since Q2 however, the numbers are still 15% higher than before the pandemic with Q3 2019 reporting the figure as 488,934. There has…
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