The names of businesses that have claimed wages through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme or furlough have continuously been published since January 2021 and HMRC has encouraged people to report any suspicions of fraud, even if reported anonymously.
HMRC received over 15,000 reports from whistle-blowers during the 12 months leading up to 1 April 2022. By comparison, in the year before the pandemic, only 8,900 reports were received. This increase was said to be largely driven by people reporting abuse of the furlough scheme provided by the government.
From the whistleblowing reports made last year, 38% of the reports were deemed to be serious enough to require further action, with HMRC following up on 5,800 cases.
