Thursday 15th April
As part of the Citizens Advice Exeter and The Express and Echo weekly advice column, this week we focus on support for the self-employed due to Coronavirus.
I am self-employed and work has really fallen away because of the Coronavirus restrictions. I claimed for the first three Self-Employment Income Support Scheme payments and heard that there is some additional help now available from the Scheme. What’s the latest?
The Government has announced a further grant under the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme for the period February 2021 to April 2021.
- HMRC will work out your eligibility by firstly looking at your 2019 to 2020 Self Assessment tax return. Your trading profits must be no more than £50,000 and at least equal to your non-trading income.
- If you’re not eligible based on your 2019 to 2020 Self Assessment tax return, HMRC will then look at the tax years 2016 to 2017, 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020.
- You must also have traded in both tax years; 2019 to 2020 and submitted your tax return by 2 March 2021, and 2020 to 2021
- You must either be currently trading but are impacted by reduced demand due to coronavirus, or have been trading but are temporarily unable to do so due to coronavirus
- You must also declare that you intend to continue to trade and that you reasonably believe there will be a significant reduction in your trading profits due to reduced business activity, capacity, demand or inability to trade due to coronavirus
The grant will provide a taxable grant calculated at 80% of 3 months’ average trading profits, and will be paid out in a single instalment and capped at £7,500 in total. The online claims service for the fourth grant will be available from late April 2021 until 31 May 2021. If you are eligible, HMRC will contact you in mid-April to give you your personal claim date. This will be the date that you can make your claim from.
The Government has also announced that there will be a further grant covering the period from May to September 2021. You will be able to claim from late July if you are eligible for the fifth grant. The amount of the fifth grant will be determined by how much your turnover has been reduced in the year April 2020 to April 2021. The fifth grant will be worth:
- 80% of 3 months’ average trading profits, capped at £7,500, for those with a turnover reduction of 30% or more
- 30% of 3 months’ average trading profits, capped at £2,850, for those with a turnover reduction of less than 30%
Further more information and advice is available at: GOV.UK
Watch out for our advice column next week when we focus on the national living wage.
The information contained in these articles does not constitute advice. Citizens Advice Exeter and The Express and Echo accept no liability for the information published. Citizens Advice Exeter is unable to respond to individual requests for advice through these columns. Copyright Citizens Advice. For the most up-to-date information, please visit www.citizensadvice.org.uk