Self-Employed Income Support Scheme

If you believe you can claim for this grant, please take time to read the detail below as it will help ensure the claim is processed quickly and easily.

 Eligibility

  • You must have traded in 2018-19 tax year and filed your self-assessment tax return by 23rd April 2020

  • You must have traded in the 2019-20 tax year

  • You must intend to continue trading in 2020-21 tax year

  • Your trade must have been adversely affected by Coronavirus, e.g.

    • You have had to shield

    • You have had to self-isolate

    • You are on sick due to Coronavirus

    • You have caring responsibilities due to Coronavirus that prevented you from working at normal capacity

    • You have had to scale down or temporarily stop because of:

      • An interruption to your supply chain, i.e. you couldn’t get required materials

      • A drop in customers (fewer or none at all)

      • Your staff being unable to come to work

You also need to meet the following criteria

  • 50% or more of your income must be from self-employment (excluding property income)

  • Your self-employed earnings are less than £50,000 for at least one of the years 2017,18 & 19 and when taking all three years as an average

 

You can check to see if you are eligible on HMRC website - https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/self-employment-support/enter-unique-taxpayer-reference

 

How will you claim

  • Check you eligibility on the above link

  • HMRC will advise the date from which you can apply (the application process opens 13th May 2020)

  • Your accountant cannot claim for you, you must complete the form yourself

  • You will need a Government Gateway ID which can be set-up when checking eligibility if you don’t already have one

  • You will also need the following

    • Your Self-Assessment UTR (Unique Taxpayer Reference) – this can be found on your tax return, your tax calculation, your reminder to complete a tax return (currently being issued to some self-employed individuals), it is also the reference you use to make your self-assessment payment. If you cannot find it, we can advise it to you but please see if you can find it before contacting us, we provide all clients with their tax returns every year so you should have it. You should be able to get a copy of your tax return on our online portal Senta if you need to (https://sjoaccountants.senta.co/)

    • Your National Insurance number – this is also included on your tax return if we have this information. (You would also be able to get it off an old payslip or P60 even if it relates to years ago)

    • Your bank account number and sort code

  • You will be told straight away if your grant has been approved and the money will be in your bank within 6 working days

  • Please take a copy of the application and the claim reference, in case of any issues arising

  • This grant is taxable so should be reported to us in the future when we complete your 2020-21 tax return.

 

There will be a review process for those who are deemed ineligible, this can be done after using the online tool or at a later date.

 

Partnerships

Please note that each partner will need to apply based on their own particular circumstances (i.e. depending on all other earnings they may have)

 

Trading less than 3 years

For those individuals who have been trading for less than 3 years, HMRC will average the income over the years in which you have been trading. This is on the basis that you traded in 2019-20 year and other criteria outlined above. 

Via SJO Accountants

 

Marianne Kennerley