2 May 2020
COVID Self-employed scheme
On 1st May 2020 the government published more information which is summarised below.
The initial scheme is for three months and will pay 80% of your average monthly trading profits, paid out in a single instalment up to a maximum of £7,500.
You can continue to work however you have to show your business has been adversely affected by coronavirus which (disregarding illness for this purpose) means:
you have had to scale down or temporarily stop trading because:
your supply chain has been interrupted
you have fewer or no customers or clients
Note: So while you can continue to work you must have scaled down the business to qualify
The condition remains that must have been trading in the tax year 2018/19 (and submitted your Tax Return), you also traded in the tax year 2019/20 AND you intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020/21.
Note: In listing the conditions the guidance does not include the words "and" or "or" and the assumption is that all conditions have to apply therefore excluding anyone who commenced self-employment after 5th April 2019 or ceased self-employment before 5th April 2020
HMRC will contact you by mid May 2020 (with payment by early June) however your accountant cannot make the claim for you. You have to make the claim yourself using the GOV.UK online service (although if you are unable to claim online an alternative way to claim will be available).
If you do not have one already you should register with the Government Gateway immediately. If you go to the government site for checking eligibility for the scheme there is a link to the page for registering a Government Gateway Account
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/self-employment-support/enter-unique-taxpayer-reference
You will require:
- Self Assessment Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) number
- National Insurance number
- Government Gateway user ID and password
- Bank account number and sort code you want the grant paid in to
You will have to confirm to HMRC that your business has been adversely affected by coronavirus.
