What help do I get during the COVID-19 outbreak if I am self-employed?

The Government has introduced the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) (this includes members of partnerships). It will provide a taxable grant to eligible self-employed individuals or partners, worth 80% of their profits up to a cap of £2,500 per month.

HM Revenue and Customs will use the average profits from tax returns in 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19 to calculate the size of the grant.

The Self-Employed Income Support Scheme will be open to those where most of their income comes from self-employment and who have profits of less than £50,000. It will be open for an initial three months, but payments are not expected until June 2020.

There is no need to apply for this as HMRC will look back at previous tax returns and contact those eligible.

The Government is deferring income tax self-assessment payments due in July to January 2021 which will help. This means that if you have a payment on account due at the end of July, this is now not payable until the beginning of next year.

If your business is VAT registered, then all VAT payments due between 20th March 2020 and 30th June 2020 will be deferred. These payments should be paid by the end of March 2021. If you are on direct debit then, you should cancel this with your bank. VAT returns will still be due for submission in the normal way.

Both deferrals will happen automatically, so no need to apply.

If you have coronavirus or are advised to self-isolate, you can now more easily make a claim for Universal Credit (UC) or new style Employment and Support Allowance. If you are eligible for new-style Employment and Support Allowance, it will now be payable from day one of sickness, rather than day eight, if you have coronavirus or are advised to self-isolate.

You may also benefit from:

• Mortgage support: following discussions with industry, for those in difficulty due to coronavirus, mortgage lenders will offer mortgage holidays of three months.
• Loans forbearance: where you are having difficulty paying back personal loans or credit. This allows them you to stop repayments temporarily, but the amount will still be due along with any accrued interest.
• Business rates holiday for retail, hospitality and leisure (RHL) businesses and for nurseries in England for the 2020/21 tax year.
• Retail & Hospitality Grant Scheme (RHGS) provides RHL businesses with a cash grant of up to £25,000 per property if eligible.
• Small Business Grant Scheme funding for local authorities to support small businesses that already pay little or no business rates because of small business rate relief (SBRR), rural rate relief (RRR) and tapered relief. This will provide a one-off grant of £10,000 to eligible businesses to help meet their ongoing business costs.

If you need any help or just want to talk to someone about your options, please don’t hesitate to give us a call today 01403 283 955.

For our latest COVID-19 news and guidance for your business, visit our dedicated Coronavirus Hub.
We will be updating it regularly as we continue to monitor and digest all the latest information

Date published 3 Apr 2020 | Last updated 3 Apr 2020

This article is intended to inform rather than advise and is based on legislation and practice at the time. Taxpayer’s circumstances do vary and if you feel that the information provided is beneficial it is important that you contact us before implementation. If you take, or do not take action as a result of reading this article, before receiving our written endorsement, we will accept no responsibility for any financial loss incurred.