Self-Employed Income Support Scheme
Originally not expected to be available until early June, the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme is now expected to be available from mid-May. Claims are going to spread over roughly a week, with individual taxpayers being invited to claim from 13 May 2020 to 18 May 2020.
To qualify for the scheme an individual needs to meet the following criteria.
- Registered as self-employed before 5 April 2019.
- Have continued to be self-employed from then until now, except where temporary cessation is solely due to the outbreak.
- Have submitted tax returns for all of the tax years from 2016/17 to 2018/19 that included self-employed income
- Have lost business as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. No minimum loss is required, but applicants will need to specify a reason for the reduced business (e.g. fewer customers)
- Average self-employed income for active periods since 2016/17 of more than 50% of total income for those years.
- Profits in 2018/19 did not exceed £50,000 or average profits for active periods from 2016/17 to 2018/19 did not exceed £50,000.
HMRC have provided an online tool to allow self-employed individuals to check if they are eligible. If this tool shows you are not eligible, but you believe you meet the criteria above, you can contact HMRC to review this.
Agents will not be able to make claims on behalf of their clients. At present the only announced route for making a claim is through an online personal tax account. An alternative method for those unable to make an online claim is to be announced shortly. This is expected to be a phone application. Anyone wishing to set up a new personal tax account to enable them to make a claim can do so here.
To make the claim, applicants will need the following information
- Unique Tax Reference
- National Insurance Number
- Bank details for receipt of the claim
The grant will be 3 months of average profits for the self-employed periods from 2016/17 to 2018/19, subject to a maximum of £2,500 a month. This will be calculated by HMRC based on the taxable profits as reported on the tax returns for those years. Grants are expected to be paid out within 6 working days of the claim being accepted by HMRC.
