HM Revenue and Customs

4. Mr U complains about HMRC’s handling of his claim for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) between December 2020 and December 2021. Specifically, he says:

• HMRC stopped his CJRS payments on 1 December 2020 and did not contact him to provide a sufficient explanation about why it had done this or begin its compliance assessment of his claims soon enough • HMRC used an incorrect wage to calculate his CJRS payments in December 2021, and did not take account of his evidence that the wage was incorrect.

5. As a result, Mr U says he was left without his CJRS payments for a year during the COVID-19 pandemic and, when HMRC eventually paid him, he was given £6,000 instead of £18,437.50. He says this represents a significant financial loss. He also says HMRC claims he owes it £1,261.91 in incorrectly claimed CJRS funds.

6. By bringing this complaint to us, Mr U would like HMRC to explain why it did not take account of his correct wage and pay him £20,000 in financial remedy in recognition of his experience and financial loss.

7. On 20 January 2021, Mr U contacted HMRC to ask why his CJRS payment for December 2020 was stopped. When he did not receive a response, Mr U continued to contact HMRC by phone, webchat and letter over the subsequent weeks and months to seek answers. This included making formal complaints in February and March 2021.

8. On 18 March 2021, HMRC emailed Mr U and told him he was not eligible to receive CJRS funds despite receiving payments prior to December 2020. Mr U continued to contact HMRC by phone until the end of May 2021 to clarify his position. HMRC told Mr U it was looking into matters and provided no further information.

9. Mr U contacted the Adjudicator’s Office (the Adjudicator) in May 2021 because he felt he had not received sufficient answers from HMRC. The Adjudicator accepted his complaint for investigation in June 2021. The Adjudicator told HMRC it would investigate the complaint because of its delays.

10. In June 2021, HMRC wrote to Mr U to apologise for its poor handling and paid Mr U £50 compensation. It said it should have contacted Mr U sooner to either explain why it had rejected Mr U’s CJRS claim, or to explain it needed to check his claim and tell Mr U what information it needed from him.

11. HMRC told Mr U it would comply with the Adjudicator’s investigation, and that its compliance team would be in touch to start its assessment of Mr U’s finances and CJRS claim. HMRC’s compliance team contacted Mr U on 20 July 2021. On 19 August 2021, the Adjudicator issued its decision on Mr U’s complaint. It partially upheld Mr U’s complaint, and recommended HMRC pay Mr U a further £50 in financial remedy.

12. In November 2021, HMRC told Mr U its assessment had determined he was only entitled to £6,000 in CJRS funds and not the £18,437.50 he had tried to claim. It also said it considered Mr U had made incorrect and excessive claims for CJRS between March 2020 and November 2020. In light of payments Mr U had already received HMRC said Mr U owed it £1,261.91.

13. In December 2021, HMRC formalised its November assessment of Mr U’s finances and CJRS claim. It decided he was not entitled to the £18,437.50 he had tried to claim. HMRC said it would pay Mr U £6,000 in CJRS funds based on the information available to it, and it told Mr U he had until 15 January 2022 to pay the £1,261.91 he owed. HMRC told Mr U he could appeal this decision via HMRC and, if he remained dissatisfied, he could appeal to the tribunal.

14. In May 2022, Mr U wrote to his MP and asked them to refer his complaint to us. His MP lost this paperwork, and the referral was subsequently made to us in July 2024.

HMRC’s lack of explanation and delayed compliance assessment

17. Mr U contacted HMRC on 20 and 28 January 2021 to ask why his CJRS payment for December 2020 had been stopped. He was told the payment was stopped because prepayment checks were required.

18. In March 2021, HMRC emailed Mr U and told him he was not eligible to receive payments under the CJRS, despite receiving CJRS payments prior to December 2020. However, HMRC did not explain why he was not eligible. It asked Mr U to contact its helpline about its decision.

19. Mr U contacted HMRC several times between 8 February 2021 and 28 May 2021 to chase the payment of CJRS funds, and to query why he had not received his payment. Despite Mr U’s repeated attempts to contact HMRC, he was told on numerous occasions it was still looking into matters and could not give any timescales for the matter to be resolved. Within this period of time, Mr U also made complaints to HMRC on 24 February 2021 and 22 March 2021.

20. While HMRC acknowledged Mr U’s complaints, it did not provide a substantive response to his concerns. This led to Mr U approaching the Adjudicator on 4 May 2021. On 6 May 2021, the Adjudicator asked HMRC to respond to Mr U. However, on 28 May 2021, Mr U contacted the Adjudicator again because HMRC had not responded. The Adjudicator accepted Mr U’s complaint for investigation on the same day.

21. On 3 June 2021, HMRC issued its response to Mr U’s complaint. It apologised and said it should have contacted Mr U sooner to explain why it had rejected his claim for CJRS, or to explain that it intended to check his claim and tell him what information it needed. It also told him it had identified discrepancies in the monthly income he had declared on his claim. HMRC said it was concerned Mr U had inflated his monthly income, to increase the amount of CJRS funds he would receive.

22. By not providing Mr U with this information sooner, given the fact it stopped his payments in January 2021, HMRC did not act in line with ‘The HMRC Charter’. This says it will be responsive to customers and provide them with accurate and clear information. This is so customers understand their rights and can meet their obligations.

23. HMRC paid Mr U a total of £130 in financial remedy to apologise for its poor handling, the stress its delays caused, and to cover his telephone charges.

24. In August 2021, the Adjudicator issued its final response following its own investigation. It acknowledged HMRC had issued its response to Mr U’s concerns a few days after starting its own investigation, which included an apology and a financial remedy already paid by HMRC. That said, the Adjudicator recommended HMRC pay Mr U a further £50 in financial remedy. This means Mr U was paid a total of £180 in financial remedy.

25. When the Adjudicator makes recommendations, it uses HMRC’s ‘Complaints and Remedy Guidance’. This guidance sets out how HMRC approaches financial remedy. This says HMRC will make ex-gratia financial remedy payments if its mistakes have left a customer out of pocket, or in recognition of any distress or worry its mistakes may cause. These payments are typically modest and in the range of £25 to £500, with most payments being at the lower end of this range. We can see the £180 paid to Mr U is in line with this guidance.

26. We recognise how frustrating and concerning it would have been for Mr U to be unclear about why HMRC considered him to be ineligible for the CJRS or, what his next steps were to try and resolve matters. He made several attempts to engage with HMRC between January 2021 and May 2021 but made little progress until the Adjudicator intervened on his behalf. For the period January to August 2021, he was not receiving CJRS payments and did not understand why that was.

27. Our ‘UK Central Government Complaint Standards’ say organisations should identify instances where things have gone wrong, or where its services have had an unfair impact, and take responsibility for these. They also say it may be appropriate for organisations to consider offering remedies which could be solely, or a combination of, an apology, explanation, remedial action, improvement to systems or procedures, or financial payments. In this case, HMRC apologised, provided an explanation, and a financial remedy.

28. Level 2 of our ‘Severity of Injustice Scale’ says we consider payments in the range of £120 to £550 to be appropriate when mistakes, delays, and poor complaint handling have led to distress, worry or annoyance that a healthy adult would be expected to deal with on a regular basis, for a period of up to six months. We also consider payments in this range to be suitable where instances of poor complaint handling include a delay of more than a few weeks up to around a year.

29. As such, we consider HMRC has acted in line with its own guidance, and ours, in providing a remedy appropriate to put right the impact its mistakes had. With this in mind, we will take no further action on this aspect of Mr U’s complaint.

HMRC’s CJRS calculations and assessment

30. Section 5(2)(b) of the Act says we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has (or had) the option to take legal action, unless we consider this is (or was) unreasonable in the circumstances.

31. As outlined above, HMRC told Mr U in November and December 2021, he was not entitled to receive the total amount of CJRS funds he had tried to claim. It told him he was only entitled to £6,000, and that he owed HMRC some money due to incorrect claims he made between March and November 2020.

32. HMRC’s letter to Mr U on 16 December 2021 set out his appeal rights. It said:

‘If you disagree with this notice of assessment, you can appeal. To do this, you need to write to us within 30 days of the date of our assessment, telling us why you think our decision is wrong. If we cannot come to an agreement, we will write to you and tell you why. You can then (do either of the following):

• have the matter reviewed by an HMRC officer who has not previously been involved in the case • ask an independent tribunal to decide the matter

If you choose a review, you can still go to the tribunal if you are not happy with the outcome.’

33. Mr U was unhappy with this decision, and he continued to email HMRC’s compliance team disputing its decision. On 14 January 2022, Mr U told HMRC he would bring his concerns to our Office.

34. HMRC responded by email on 18 January 2022 and told Mr U the only way to challenge its calculations and assessment was via an appeal either to itself, the tribunal, or both. HMRC provided Mr U with the address to send his appeal to, should he decide to appeal to HMRC before the tribunal.

35. However, Mr U did not do this, and he wrote to his MP in May 2022 and asked them to refer his concerns to us.

36. As such, we asked Mr U why he did not lodge an appeal with HMRC or the tribunal, when he had the option to do so in December 2021, and January 2022.

37. Mr U told us that is complaints and expressions of dissatisfaction were appeals in his view. He also said he had been directed to us by the Adjudicator in its decision in August 2021. As such, he said he considers he has already appealed, and has recourse to bring this concern to us.

38. The evidence shows the Adjudicator did not consider the financial matters Mr U is asking us to consider. The Adjudicator considered HMRC’s delays, the handling of his complaints, and its lack of explanation. The Adjudicator told Mr U he could bring these concerns to us in August 2021, and we have considered those matters in the previous section. The Adjudicator did not consider HMRC’s assessment, or its calculations, and therefore did not advise Mr U he could bring these concerns to us.

39. Once HMRC made its final decision regarding Mr U’s finances and issued its notice in December 2021, HMRC was clear with him about what his options were to challenge its decision. HMRC reiterated those steps in January 2022 when Mr U told HMRC he would not appeal, because he felt he already had, and he would approach us with his concerns instead.

40. Once it had done so, Mr U sent some emails outlining his dissatisfaction, but he did not write to the address HMRC told him he needed to use to lodge an appeal with it, nor did he contact the tribunal.

41. With the above in mind, we can see Mr U wanted HMRC to overturn its calculation of his CJRS from December 2021, he had been provided with a clear route available to him to challenge HMRC’s assessment via tribunal and he chose not to take it at that time. As such, we consider we are unable to intervene as per section 5(2)(b) of the Act. Therefore, we will take no further action on this aspect of his complaint.

42. We thank Mr U for bringing his concerns to us, and we recognise his strength of feeling about HMRC’s actions. We recognise our decision may be disappointing for him and trust he has found the explanations above helpful.

1. We have carefully considered Mr U’s complaint about HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) handling of his claim for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) between December 2020 and December 2021. Mr U says HMRC took too long to explain why it stopped his CJRS payments and respond to his complaints, and delayed starting its compliance check. He also says HMRC underpaid him when it eventually gave him CJRS funds in December 2021. We recognise the distressing and difficult experiences Mr U has suffered as a result of financial pressures brought about by the COVID-19 Pandemic.

2. After carefully considering the evidence available to us, we consider HMRC got things wrong when it did not explain quickly enough to Mr U why it stopped his CJRS payments or tell him what information it needed to carry out its checks. It also did not respond to his complaints when it said it would. However, we consider HMRC has already done enough to put things right for him.

3. For Mr U’s concerns about the calculations HMRC made when carrying out its assessment of his finances, which is used to determine whether he was eligible for the CJRS, and how much he was entitled to, we have decided to take no further action. This is because Mr U has a legal remedy and we think it is reasonable for him to pursue that. We recognise this may be disappointing. We explain the reasons for our decision below.