If you haven't already made a claim under the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme then the deadline is fast approaching. It will soon be your last chance to make an SEISS claim ...
This means that you must be able to prove you have lost income from it. Once you've made your claim, HMRC will look into your records and make a final decision on your eligibility. They may phone you if they are unsure.
One or more of the following make you eligible:
- Lockdown regulations mean you could no longer conduct your business and had to close
- You were unable to make your business or workplace safe for staff or customers
- Social distancing mean you can no longer server customers
- Restrictions on movement affected you, your customers or staff
- Your supply chain was interrupted due to shortages of products
- One or more contacts was cancelled
- Your customer base has been reduced or completely cancelled
Claiming the second grant is not dependant on whether you claimed the first or not. You may have been trading at normal levels back in May and the reduction in your income may have happened later on.
To make a claim under the second SEISS grant, you must:
- Have submitted your Income Tax Self Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018-19 on or by 23 April 2020
- Have traded in the tax year 2019-20
- Are trading when you apply or would be except for COVID-19
- Intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020-21
- Have lost trading/partnership trading profits due to COVID-19. You should keep records to support this
- Your average self-employed trading profits are between £0 - £50,000
To make your claim, you should first use the SEISS Eligibility Tool"https://www.rossmartin.co.uk/covid-19/4673-coronavirus-self-employment-income-support-tool which you can find on the HMRC website.
You will need your Universal Tax Reference (UTR) and NI Number to then make a claim via the Government Gateway. It's an easy process to setup an account, but most self-employed people should already have one.
The SEISS is a series of grants made by the Treasury to an individual tax payer to support their business during the Coronavirus pandemic. However, it is subject to Income Tax and National Insurance contributions so add this money into your tax calculations when you submit your next tax return.
If you feel inspired to find out more about anything I've said here, do call me on 01908 774320 or leave a comment below and I'll be in touch as soon as I can.