To take the grant for self employed people?

[Curlywurly75]

I'm self employed part time and don't earn a huge amount. My earnings were affected a little the past couple of months due to the virus but by a few hundred rather than thousands.

The grant is based on average earnings over the past three years. I earned a lot more in 16/17 and 17/18 than I did in the last tax year. So, by my reckoning, my grant could be around £3-4k which is quite a lot more than I've actually lost out on. So I feel almost a bit dishonest about accepting it. But at the same time, I don't know how my earnings could be affected in the next few months.

Would you take the grant or not?

Take it but beware that somehow in the future the Govt will need to recoup a lot of money (my money is on tax codes going back down to 1100 in the Autumn budget).

It’s taxable so the amount you get will be included in your next self assessment. I say take it.

Take it. You only get 3 months worth and we do not yet know how it will affect june onwards income. It is declared as taxable income. We don't know what will happen later in the year with a second wave.

I've applied today. You have to pay tax and NI on it anyway. You could just save it- I'm saving some of mine for when my mortgage break ends in case I haven't got my clients back.

I'm in a real dilemma too.

I got screwed over by a huge client who scammed me out of thousands a few years back. At the same time my son was diagnosed with autism and my dad got diagnosed with a terminal illness, and I had to care for him. I carried on working full-time but it was really hard going as I didn't have lots of spare time to market and network. I found it hard to get back on my feet after the scam. As a result, I've only been scraping by with fairly low value contracts.

Anyway, earlier this year I finally managed to land a long-term and lucrative contract which pays more than three times the rate. I'm never going to be a millionaire but it means I can finally pay the bills when they're due rather than juggling.

This particular contract only takes 15-20 hours per week, so I would have been free to carry on with some of my other clients too. This would have meant in total, my earnings would have been much higher.

Corona hit and luckily the big contract confirmed they still want to proceed. If I work late at night, I can still manage it. I have two children to home-school. My son has quite profound needs, and usually attends a special school. My daughter is just going through the process for autism diagnosis and while not to the same degree, still needs lots of help as she's struggling hugely with her schoolwork and can't communicate very well. There's no way I can fit in the work from my other contracts, and I'm having to work through the night to deliver on the big contract as I need quiet to concentrate (it's technical).

Soooo.....my income will be the same, or maybe even a tiny bit higher compared to other years. But it's about a half to two-thirds of what it should have been if I was able to work my regular hours. On top of that, I'm killing myself burning the candle at both ends to be able to do it. I don't want to lose it but I'm about to drop.

Has my business been affected by the virus? Well, yes. My working hours are taken up with childcare. My son takes a long time to settle so I'm not starting work until 10-11pm at night and working through to 4 or 5am, or later before getting up with the kids once more. I'm utterly exhausted. I can't fulfil my other contracts..... but if HMRC check, my income might not be lower than last year...... so do I qualify or not?? Brutally honest, I could absolutely do with the money because of the difficult years we've been through (single mum). And my income is much lower than it should have been because my children can't go into the school. I don't know whether I meet their criteria or not?!

I'm not eligible for it because my business doesn't yet make a profit - my income is ok and covers my outgoings, but they are basing it on profit 🙄 I'm lucky that I have a studio so got the SBBR grant, otherwise I'd be totally stuffed.

In your case - another vote for take it, save it, and then if you find you don't need it, either spend it with other small businesses or donate it to charity :) but don't forget to keep the tax percentage back as it apparently counts as income...

I'm dithering about this as well. My income took a dive in March, as I agreed to change from a monthly fee to a day rate to help a client who had lost a lot of their income, but has recovered in April, and looks ok for the next couple of months at least. BUT I've lost 2 smallish future contracts already, and most of my work comes from the arts sector, which is likely to be hit for some time to come.

Take the money.

A relevant charitable donation could be to www.justgiving.com/maternity-action
Or pregnant then screwed.

Self employed women who’ve taken maternity leave in the last 3 years will miss out on the grant and be underpaid.

@ExhaustedFlamingo I'd take the money, purely because you don't have a crystal ball and have absolutely no way of knowing how things are going to pan out. Your contract may run into trouble further down the line, kids may be off school for longer than anticipated, all these factors could cause issues.

I'd make the claim and use it as an insurance, just in case. This will probably be the only grant self employed people receive.

Take it. I am currently unaffected, but I know that in three months time when we're in full on recession, I'm really going to take a whack. They haven't said there is any future help for the self employed so I've taken the help now in order to buffer later down the line.

Yes, take the money. You say your income has dropped by hundreds of pounds, therefore it has been adversely affected. Plus you don't know how things will go over the next few months.

There are winners and losers with the grant. I know things are complicated with some self employed people but I do think they could have done better than they have, especially with people who's circumstances are quite different to how they were 1/2/3 years ago, during the qualifying years. You've benefitted from this. Many others haven't and the government seem to be willfully ignoring this.

For example DPs main income for the last 10 years has been from festivals and concerts. He last did some work in early March and doesn't expect to earn anything in this sector for months. But because he had an employed job in the relevant qualifying year, he is entitled to precisely £0 SE grant, despite being fully back to SE for well over a year. Fortunately, he's managed to get some agency work in another sector so we'll be fine, but many won't and face months without any income, or struggling on UC or trying to find work elsewhere.

Take it and put it into your pension if you don’t need it now as that will have been severely affected.

@AldiAisleOfCrap I agree with you. Take it, save it, use it if you need to and donate once we are back to normal if you didn't use it all.

Just make sure you can prove how your income was affected. If you are still receiving income that you then declare they may look into it as your income wont have dropped significantlh and it could be classed as fraud.

I'm getting a lot less because of mat leave within the qualifying period. If it was pro rata for the months that I was working I would be ok, as it is I'm not. It's a terribly unfair system for some. Why it cant be pro rata is beyond me, that would avoid discrimination against women (and it is still mainly women) who take mat leave.

I really hope checks will be done to 3nsure it is to support businesses who have been significantly affected.
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We are all going to have to repay all this. I don't want to contribute to people who are going to cash in the opportunity and then use ways to avoid paying their full tax bill.

Take it, keep what you haven’t needed aside as we all know this is going to bite us in the bum one way or another on the years to come, whether it’s through higher tax or what.

I really hope checks will be done to 3nsure it is to support businesses who have been significantly affected.

The criteria is "adversely" affected, NOT significantly affected. That's all that matters. A small affect can still be "adverse".

Lots of furloughed staff are better off if they've avoided travel costs etc - do you want them to repay it or not claim too or are you just biased against the self employed?

Lots of public sector staff are still on full pay despite working fewer hours - should they pay the excess back too?

The Chancellor has already said he's going to increase NIC for the self employed to pay for this support.

I read through all the details of the grant, and it gives examples of what "adversely affected" means- one of them was having new caring responsibilities you didn't have before. So if you can prove you have kids off school, I'd say that would count as evidence.

I also very much doubt that HMRC will have the resources to check many claims of the millions that will be made, but I have put my evidence to one side just in case!

@dontdisturbmenow Do you feel the same about the furlough payments?

I am a tutor and my work has completely stopped apart from one online student. If I was to go online, I would be fighting a losing battle as there has been an influx of online tutors and I would have to argue about my prices.

I also took the grant for future means so I had money to fall back on if lockdown continued in September.

I meant to say that the one online student is very ad hoc.. as and when they need me.

I have applied-
On the face of it I am not badly affected , as sales have remained buoyant , but I have spent much more on mail services, upgrading to 24 hour service , to try to beat the backlog and more on packaging , due to royal mail breaking items because they were overwhelmed.
Plus my supply chains are closed , with no date for re-opening (Scotland) ,so i know I will start to be badly affected in the coming weeks ,as I am now running out of stock to sell

Take it. You might need it later.

Don’t just piss it up the wall though, be sensible. Be aware that you may be asked to repay it later if it’s obvious you don’t need it.

If it genuinely is surplus to requirements and you’re never asked for it back, donate it to a good cause.

I'm taking it. My income is only slightly down, but given it's possible this is the only help coming for the SE, plus no idea of what the future will hold, when my DD will be able to go to nursery, etc. I'm going to take it.

Given the lack of any objective criteria, I don't think anyone claiming in good faith needs to worry about fraud. By fraud, they mean people who have been deceptive about their self-employment status/profits etc., probably those who were given a dispensation to file their 2018-2019 returns v late and might have artificially inflated their profits in the knowledge it would affect the grant.