Government response

HMRC responds to petition from 38 Degrees

HMRC has responded to a petition on National Minimum Wage from 38 Degrees

• From: HM Revenue & Customs
• Published: 17 December 2015

An HMRC spokesperson said

While we don’t discuss individual cases we always investigate businesses where we believe they are not paying the National Minimum Wage (NMW). We act on information from a range of sources, including workers, third parties or from our own proactive work to gather intelligence.

Where a company is not paying the NMW we have a proven track record for taking firm action and will continue to do so. Since April this year alone we have taken action against 557 businesses, clawing back over £8 million for 46,000 workers who had been illegally underpaid.

Action taken

• Since April this year we took action against 557 businesses and clawed back £8 million for 46,000 workers who had been illegally underpaid.
• Since the introduction of the NMW in 1999, HMRC has completed over 69,000 NMW investigations and identified over £65 million arrears of pay for over 300,000 workers who had been illegally underpaid.
• We currently have 1557 investigations underway across the UK.

Published 17 December 2015