Furlough scheme cut-off date extended to 19th March

Yesterday, the government announced that the eligibility date for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has now been extended to 19th March 2020.

This extension, from the original date of 28th February, means that thousands more employees will be able to receive support through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

• To qualify and to protect against fraudulent claims, individuals originally had to be employed on 28th February 2020. However, this cut-off date has now been extended to the 19th March 2020.

• To benefit from the extension the employer must have made an RTI submission, notifying HMRC of a payment to the employee on or before 19 March 2020.  Therefore, if you make monthly payroll submissions at the end of each month, you may not benefit from the extension period.

• Under the scheme, employers can claim a grant covering 80% of the wages for a furloughed employee, subject to a cap of £2,500 a month.

To find out further details on the scheme, please visit the Gov.uk website.

Read our Job Retention Scheme and Furloughed Employees FAQs

If you have any further questions, please do get in touch with the team at DRG. We would be delighted to hear from you.