Self-employed to receive Government income support

Many will have welcomed the much anticipated announcement from the Chancellor in relation to support for the self-employed.

The measures announced on 26 March will be a welcome relief to a large portion of self-employed people in the UK.

Self-employed Income Support Scheme

If you are self-employed or a member of a partnership you may be entitled to claim a taxable grant worth 80% of your trading profits, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month for the next 3 months. To qualify you should have trading profits in 2018/19 of less than £50,000 and more than half of your income.

You will need to:

• have submitted an income self-assessment for the tax year 2018-19
• have traded in the year 2019-20
• be trading, or would be except for COVID-19
• intend to continue to trade in 2020-21
• have lost trading/partnership profits due to COVID-19

To understand whether you qualify, at least one of the following conditions must be true:

• Having trading profits/partnership trading profits in 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these profits constitute more than half of your total taxable income
• Having average trading profits in 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these profits constitute more than half of your average taxable income in the same period

If you started trading between 2016-19, HMRC will only use those years for which you filed a Self-Assessment tax return.

It is not yet possible to apply for this funding but as soon as details are available on how to do this, we will publish them. In the meantime, read the Government guidance here.

Personal Service Companies (PSC)

Please note that if you operate as a PSC, you will not be eligible under this scheme. You could however qualify under the Job Retention Scheme. Read the Government guidance on this scheme here.