Self-employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS)
The scheme will provide a taxable grant worth 80% of your trading profits up to a maximum of £2,500 per month for the next 3 months (and this may be extended if needed).
To be eligible your self-employed trading profits for 2018/19 must be less than £50,000 and more than 50% of your total income.
You may still be eligible if your average trading profits for the tax years 2016/17 to 2018/19 were less than £50,000 and more than 50% of your total income.
If you started to trade part way through the above period, only the years where a tax return was filed will be used.
As HMRC will use the 2018/19 tax returns to identify who is eligible, if you haven’t filed this yet, you have until 23rd April to get this filed, so please get in touch with us at Harvey Telford & Bates so we can help you with this.
Additional criteria includes:
- You must have lost trading profits due to Covid-19
- Traded during the tax year 2019/20
- Trading when you apply (or would be except for coronavirus)
- Intending to trade during the tax year 2020/21
The grant will amount to 80% of your average profits per the (applicable) tax years 2016/17 to 2018/19 equal to 3 months, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month. The grant will be paid directly to your bank in one lump sum most likely in June.
You do not need to do anything to register for this scheme. HMRC know which individuals will be eligible from the information submitted on the self-assessment tax returns and they will contact and invite those that qualify.
Potential scams and fraudsters will undoubtedly try to abuse this scheme. It can only be accessed via a portal (currently being built) through the gov.uk website so please do not provide any information such as bank or credit card details by replying or clicking on any links via texts, emails or calls from someone claiming to be from HMRC.
Company directors are not classed as self employed and are NOT eligible for this scheme. If you are paid via PAYE you may be eligible to make a claim via the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
