Recommendation 19

HMRC plans to wind up the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce between April and September 2023, returning its staff to business-as-usual tax compliance activities. It said it would continue to look at non-compliance on the COVID-19 schemes as part of a customer’s general tax compliance. There is a risk that the closure of the Taskforce could reduce the focus on COVID-19 error and fraud. HMRC’s own figures indicate that by 2022–23 between £2.0 billion and £5.1 billion of error and fraud on CJRS and SEISS is likely to remain unrecovered.33 Criminal and civil sanctions