It sounds like something out of a Harry Potter book. For many businesses Monday 20th April was as eagerly awaited as the annual publication of the next part of J K Rowlings series about the young wizard was back in the 2000s.
The long-awaited opening of HMRC’s portal to upload claims for the first “furlough” claim took place on Monday. HMRC proudly announced that the site could cope with 450,000 claims an hour. The BBC reported 67,000 claims in the first half-hour on Monday morning and apart from the mild embarrassment of HMRC’s JRS calculator having an error embedded in it all seemed to go well.
The responses my clients have received have universally shown the claims have been uploaded with little problem. The standard confirmation also stated that funds should be received within six working days making Tuesday 28th April the anticipated date for receipt of funds.
This good news for the Government followed on from the announcement of the extension of the Job Retention Scheme for another month.
