You probably know about the (new) tight timescales for lodging a furlough claim with HMRC. Broadly, the claim has to be submitted within two weeks of the end of the previous calendar month (see below) unless there is a “reasonable excuse for failing to make a claim in time”. Yesterday, the government amended its guidance to give examples of what it meant by a ‘reasonable excuse’, summarised below.
These are the deadlines:
Claim for furlough days in | Claim must be submitted by |
November 2020 | 14 December 2020 |
December 2020 | 14 January 2021 |
January 2021 | 15 February 2021 |
February 2021 | 15 March 2021 |
March 2021 | 14 April 2021 |
The HMRC guidance states that the following examples ‘may’ amount to a reasonable excuse for missing the deadline:
- your partner or another close relative died shortly before the claim deadline
- you had an unexpected stay in hospital that prevented you from dealing with your claim
- you had a serious or life-threatening illness, including Coronavirus related illnesses, which prevented you from making your claim (and no one else could claim for you)
- a period of self-isolation prevented you from making your claim (and no one else could make the claim for you)
- your computer or software failed just before or while you were preparing your online claim service issues with HMRC online services prevented you from making your claim
- a fire, flood or theft prevented you them from making your claim
- postal delays that you could not have predicted prevented you from making your claim
- delays related to a disability you have prevented you from making your claim
- a HMRC error prevented you from making your claim
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