At Spring Budget 2021 the Government announced a £100 million investment into the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce. The taskforce was established to extend HMRC\u2019s work to tackle fraud and error in the COVID support schemes that they administered (Self Employment Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, and Eat Out to Help Out). The taskforce does not deliver compliance across schemes administered outside HMRC.<\/p>
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Anyone who keeps grant money despite knowing they were not entitled to it, faces having to repay up to double the amount they received, plus interest and potentially criminal prosecution.<\/p>
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HMRC identifies claims for compliance checks where the amount of the claim is out of step with other information. The risk that the claim is incorrect may be due to either an honest mistake or fraud, therefore, the value of recovered grants does not distinguish between error and fraud.<\/p>
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As of July 2022, the taskforce was made up of 1,155 full-time equivalent staff (FTE). The FTE will vary across the year. The resource commitment is proportionate to the number of high-risk claims made and the risks posed by error and fraud in the HMRC administered schemes.<\/p>
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