Employee omitted from pre-lockdown RTI submissions

The taxpayer made claims under the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) for its director his wife and an employee. The employee had been employed and paid by the taxpayer since December 2019 but was not included on its real-time information (RTI) returns until June 2020.

HMRC said the employer was therefore not eligible for the CJRS because to qualify employees had to have been included on an RTI return submitted to HMRC by 28 February 2020 or by 19 March 2020.

The taxpayer appealed saying its accountants had been responsible for running the payroll but the taxpayer only became aware of the omission of the employee in May 2020.

The First-tier Tribunal said the legislation was strict – the employee was not included in an RTI return made by a ‘relevant CJRS day’ namely 28 February or 19 March 2020 so there was no entitlement to...