Help for the Self-Employed

The new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced this afternoon (26^th March 2020) much needed support for the self-employed. This will be known as the Coronavirus Self-Employment Income Support Scheme.

As in any support, there are conditions and the detail will need to be scrutinised.

To be eligible for the scheme there are various conditions that need to be met, and these are:

• Be self-employed or a member of a trading partnership.

• Show that you have suffered loss in income from trading or partnership trading profits due to Coronavirus.
• Filed a tax return for 2018/2019 as self-employed or a member of a trading partnership.
• If you are late filing your tax return you will have until 22 April 2020 to file the return so to be eligible for this scheme.
• Have traded in 2019/2020 so currently trading or would be trading but for coronavirus.

• Expect to continue to trade in the tax year 2020/2021.
• Have trading profits of less than £50,000 and that more than half of your total income comes from self-employment.

• You can base this on your trading profits and total income in 2018/19 or an average of your trading profits and total income based on the three tax years between 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19.

To access the scheme, HMRC will use existing information they hold to check potential eligibility. HMRC will invite applications once the scheme is operational but have suggested not contacting them now. HMRC will then make the payment directly to eligible claimants’ bank account. Initially, this will be available for three months in one lump-sum payment, and it is expected it will be paid at the beginning of June 2020.

Disclaimer - All information in this post was correct at time of writing.