self-employed help

[houselikeashed]

So if my profit is £51k - I get no help from the government?
Is that right?

If I'm reading it right, taxable profit means that it will discount the first 11k or whatever the current tax-free amount is of earnings? So if you earn, say, £20,000 a year after expenses, you'll only get 80% of the £9,000 of it that is taxable, split over 12 months? So ~£600 a month?

Ah no I think I'm wrong thankfully

Or maybe I'm not. Gah!

If you take advantage of years of paying less tax than employees you really can’t expect the same level of taxpayer bail out.

@BillMasen - I agree. I am now PAYE but in the past had my own company. I paid myself partly in dividends and partly as an employee to minimise my tax liability like many on here. But if you are doing that to pay less in, you cannot complain if you get less out.

Same with those self employed who have done everything they can to minimise their taxable income and tax paid for many years. They can have no complaints if they are not getting government support.

I know we should have had more set aside believe me, but we'e had a shit few years, I became ill and unable to work so we were relying on one income and didn't manage to get anything saved. Now that's gone.
People saying that they have limited sympathy should remember that behind the words on the screen are terrified human beings who are now faced with complete catastrophe.

As previous posters pointed out, he wasn't paying that much less tax anyway, he could have done, he could have used all sorts of loopholes but felt it was the wrong thing to do.

I'm crying my eyes out here, I'm so scared of what's going to happen to us. UC won't cover us as we have a mortgage, and any break is three months. No-one thinks this is going to be remotely over in that time period.

I'm really sorry for the people who are up ahit creek.

Can I ask a potentially daft q? If you are making 52k profit as a self employed person as per the examples above, and paying yourself in ?? Dividends?? Typically, how much tax and NI would you be paying on that amount?

It's net profit - isn't it? i.e. what income declare on your tax return and pay taxes on? Not gross profit i.e. After you deduct cost of sales from turnover but before you deduct your expenses. I'm assuming net profit as a big chunk of our expenses are wages which are already covered.

Taxable profit won't be above the threshold. It's still taxable - you just have a personal allowance which reduces it.

profit is above 50k. No dividends here, sole trader paying appropriate amount of tax on income. No help. An employee with same amount of income gets £2500 a month net. We’re all in this together my backside. Why should I deprive my kids of outside life and my mental health for a nation which is happy to damage ours with this measure?

If it’s okay to do this to self employed, why not do it for employed too? This is not parity.

It will be net profit, yes. Sadly...

I was fully onboard with all the efforts. No longer

Yes, thanks, I got confused by the wording in a Guardian article. Thankfully it looks like I won't need to claim it as my work is remaining steady, so I'm very fortunate. I'm a sole trader who has always paid the proper tax and is very scrupulous about my accounts and doing everything properly.

When people say those in PAYE can get the employer to cover, how about musicians? Multiple small PAYE contracts for short lengths of time and 30% self-employed teaching?

I think a lot of musicians will suffer from NO INCOME at all now.

It’s awful and a great many people (probably really the majority of the country) are suffering from this outbreak. I feel for everyone but I still think that those who did things so they could pay less tax have no complaints if those same things mean they get less taxpayer help. But it’s awful for so many of us certainly and there is a very human tragedy being played out in many homes. But the state has limited resources and this bail out is already going to cause many many years of austerity for the poorest.

Completely agree @forgotten everyone seems to think the self employed lie about income, dodge taxes and are greedy bastards who deserves this,

I do everything above board, I don't do dividends etc, earn well, pay my taxes (at the same rate as an employed person), never had any help bar tax free childcare and I've been screwed.

I don't understand why this is happening

@zsazsajuju many of us have paid the taxes. What about us?

We didn’t pay less tax though. Straight sole trader, no dividends. That’s the same as most dentists In the UK- historically self employed. Working in different locations. British dental association calls this ‘criminally irresponsible’. All done at the same time as asking them to volunteer for the nhs. You couldn’t make it up. Good luck anyone in finding a dentist in 6 months time.

Another here in the same boat - self employed making just over £50k. We pay huge amounts of tax but plough nearly all the profits back into the business.

Feel we pay from every angle.... and now might not have a business left in a couple of months.

Lost my vote forever. We won’t be the only ones.

I also have little sympathy for people taking part in tax avoidance schemes. You can’t blame the accountant as you’re signing up to it. Many people do it to avoid paying as much child support for example. Not saying everyone does that but I’ve seen SO many posts on here and FB over the years saying they get minimal child support as their ex has fiddled their books. We all know people who don’t declare all their income, pay cash and don’t pay the VAT. My plumber for example. Sadly that has consequences now

@ChipsAreLife - then you should be eligible. If you earn over 50k you will be excluded but according to Rishi that’s only 5% of the self employed (that 5% who he says earn an average of 200k). So I would query if it’s the taxpayers place to bail such people out.

There are some difficult choices to be made tho and to everyone struggling.

If someone has fiddled their affairs illegally, they are MORE likely to benefit from this - not less

@Forgotten2020 - who will you vote for instead?