Grant Claims for Furloughed Employees Available From 20 April 2020

The online portal through which businesses can register their furloughed workers and apply to receive a grant to cover 80% of furloughed workers wages from the government, will be available from 20th April.

Furthermore, the government has extended the eligibility to 19 March 2020 – the day before the scheme was announced. Previously the date had been set as 28th February.

This means that employers can claim for furloughed employees that were employed and on their PAYE payroll and notified to HMRC on or before 19 March 2020.

Clearly getting details of the date from when employers can start making a claim plus the date extension is welcome news.  However, it seems clear that the HMRC will be inundated with queries and claims as soon as their online portal opens on 20th April.

Therefore, they have asked accountants such as us, to support them in this mammoth task of getting these grants to businesses as quickly as possible and with the minimum of fuss.

If you need to apply for a grant, we recommend that you start to collate the information that you will need now, ready to submit your application on 20th April to receive your grant at the earliest possible date.

Details of what you will need to make a claim are on the GOV.uk website.

HMRC state that they aim to pay grant claims to businesses within 6 working days of receiving a claim but there is no guarantee.  The concern is that it could take much longer.

This will be a worry to all businesses but especially SME’s who are struggling with cashflow and need certainty about when they will receive these vital funds.

Commenting on helping businesses get grants to cover the 80% of furloughed employees salaries, James Cornthwaite said “Scott & Wilkinson is monitoring the developments very closely and we have now approached all our payroll clients to encourage them to forward to us additional information required for making the grant claims. We recognise that it will be extremely important to make these claims without delay”.