living off savings for 16months

[wheresmymillionaire]

Just wondering what the general feeling is….
Is it fair that a self employed workers who used to earn £51k have to live off savings for 16months, whilst paye workers who earn £51k get £2.5k a month.
how can this be right? A family member used to work in the West End and is self employed. They're really struggling now. They can't even claim Universal credit as they have some online coaching work they do, but this doesn't cover their bills apparently, but stops them from getting the benefits. As I understand this, it must be wrong. What am I missing? Theatre was closed down, so why can't the actors etc be furloughed and get some money to see them through?

@vanillandhoney

you’re a small business owner. Aren’t you eligible for grants?

In my area, you're only eligible for grants if you own a bricks and mortar business. So if you work outside the home as say, a dog walker, a mobile hairdresser or similar, you can't apply for any grants.

This isn't true. If you are self employed and a sole trader, like a dog Walker, and you've registered as self employed for the years stated by hmrc, ie the year before this one, and paid your tax bill, then you are entitled to the seiss grant if your business has been affected. I run after school and toddler classes as a sole trader and I've had three grants so far, as I said before. Why wouldn't you meet that criteria? Having a bricks and mortar shop is not mentioned in the criteria at all.

Mrex
I am a tax accountant anonymising the queries I've had from clients.

And yes, the original furlough of 80% was pretty generous
but it did not cover the bills

when furlough dropped to 60%
life became very VERY tough

LOTS of part time employees also have self employment income
its how they used to survive

many self employed are now heading into their tenth month with no turnover

trevorandsimon

sigh. Because there are rules that exclude certain self employed people. Just because you have been lucky to get the SEISS grants, it doesn't mean that all SE people can.

Local gov grants make their own rules up, including ave to have premises.

This isn't true. If you are self employed and a sole trader, like a dog Walker, and you've registered as self employed for the years stated by hmrc, ie the year before this one, and paid your tax bill, then you are entitled to the seiss grant if your business has been affected. I run after school and toddler classes as a sole trader and I've had three grants so far, as I said before. Why wouldn't you meet that criteria? Having a bricks and mortar shop is not mentioned in the criteria at all.

I don't qualify for the SEISS grant because I've only been self-employed since February - which I've mentioned several times on this thread. The only other grants in our area are for businesses based in physical locations.

Believe me, I've researched and spoken to the council and my MP. I get nothing.

I wonder how much this will whole thing will affect choice of industry?

Even when this pandemic is over I think it would be naive to imagine that in this global world we won’t face another health crisis in the not too distant future.

Careers such as the arts/media/event planning are so attractive as they are enjoyable, which is why self employment is rife. Surely, ultimately this experience seems to have made clear that perhaps choosing a career for stability, not pure enjoyment is more sensible. Will this change anything?

If you are self employed and a sole trader, like a dog Walker, and you've registered as self employed for the years stated by hmrc, ie the year before this one, and paid your tax bill, then you are entitled to the seiss grant if your business has been affected. I run after school and toddler classes as a sole trader and I've had three grants so far, as I said before. Why wouldn't you meet that criteria

There are several reasons why you wouldn't meet the criteria. RTFT.

Honestly this thread is like all the ministers on the news spouting about people using savings or having a high income and not needing support or claiming UC and sticking their fingers in their ears and going 'la la la, I'm not listening' when people trying to explain that none of these options apply to millions of self employed people, many of whom are self employed, not through choice, but because unscrupulous employers are able to exploit the system to avoid giving people employment rights. Being employed in some sectors is simply not an option.

@vanillandhoney

This isn't true. If you are self employed and a sole trader, like a dog Walker, and you've registered as self employed for the years stated by hmrc, ie the year before this one, and paid your tax bill, then you are entitled to the seiss grant if your business has been affected. I run after school and toddler classes as a sole trader and I've had three grants so far, as I said before. Why wouldn't you meet that criteria? Having a bricks and mortar shop is not mentioned in the criteria at all.

I don't qualify for the SEISS grant because I've only been self-employed since February - which I've mentioned several times on this thread. The only other grants in our area are for businesses based in physical locations.

Believe me, I've researched and spoken to the council and my MP. I get nothing.

Ah ok! I missed that. Well that makes sense then doesn't it, the Gov can't pay you if you haven't been trading as self employed otherwise anyone will say they have been and as they are not checking then it is open to fraud

Gov can't pay you if you haven't been trading as self employed otherwise anyone will say they have been and as they are not checking then it is open to fraud

Bollocks. They should pay me something based on my last 10+ years of tax contributions as an employee. I've paid my tax yet I get absolutely fuck all help, whereas someone who has never been employed in their life but happened to get a job in January, was eligible for furlough at 80% of their salary.

Stop defending this shit show.

What is unfair, is low paid workers who haven’t stopped throughout the pandemic more than likely being faced with tax increases

Amazed at certain people’s utter ignorance. Many self employed ARE low paid workers. Many of whom haven’t been given support since March. And will have higher taxes after all this.

Gov can't pay you if you haven't been trading as self employed otherwise anyone will say they have been and as they are not checking then it is open to fraud

They use people's tax returns to work out entitlement, it's not a blanket £2.5k and they're not pulling figures out of the air.

But when people fall through the cracks for spurious reasons, suddenly they're not able to use this information.

DP has been mostly freelance for the last 10 years but because 55% of his income was from PaYe in the qualifying years he gets nothing. How is that fair?

Barbara
One of my friends / clients was hit because their combined PAYE & house rental added up to £5 more than their self employment

and before anybody says
she cannot sell the house
because it would make a family homeless

People need to get the gov to sort this out.
Sunak refuses to listen, and spouts out lies on tv.
he said that the SEISS grant is available to all SE workers. This is just not true, and makes people believe we are being helped when we are not.

A grant was paid from local councils quite early on in lockdown 1 to those businesses in registered premises for business council tax purposes. I've recently read that some the larger companies who received this grant are paying it back (larger supermarkets). So there was no upper limit on premises, nor was there a lower one. In a local artisan workshop development, most units are so small they are zero-rated for council tax but they still got the payout.
This was quite separate to any HMRC payouts to self employed.

I only too the dog out for a quick walk... look what I came back to!

Yet more totally incorrect claims! Means tested my arse!!!

Yes I have friends with tiny units who took the grant... they used it to pay for electricity, continued insurances, etc. Nothing wrong with that, it is precisely what it was intended for - as our local councillors made certain was made public knowledge, presumably to counteract accusations of impropriety!

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn

The whole system stinks. I've worked and paid taxes as employed and self employed for over 30 years.

Was actually employed when covid hit. Company refused to furlough. Made everyone redundant. Not there long enough to get redundancy pay. Just over 16k savings (for DD to go to Uni - it's taken 12 years to save). Not entitled to UC, so £74 per week.

So life savings have to be used while I desperately try to find employment, while others receive handouts on furlough. It has been so unfair for so many people.

Once your savings drop below £16k, you may be entitled to UC.

They deduct a "tariff income" on savings from £6k-£15,999. If you go on one of the online benefit calculators, it'll tell you if you're entitled to any UC yet, then you can apply.

You don't get UC unless your partner is a low earner and you have DC. Or if you are single.

Couples with no DC or with DC but their partner earns more than not very much are likely to get nothing. Yet the bills still need to be paid.

Lakie
So we middle aged folks
bun through all of our savings
in exchange for £94 a week
and then become reliant on the taxpayer for the whole of our old age
BECAUSE WE HAVE NO SAVINGS

but employees do NOT have to dip into their savings to get support

We as a family of 4 adults lost all our “jobs” when we went into the first lockdown.

Dp was between jobs. He was about to start his new job in March but they pulled the plug on that.
He is 65 and probably will never work again. All savings and most of his pension was taken to keep him alive when the NHS refused to treat his cancer.
So he gets nothing in any scheme apart from UC. Which is also linked to my earnings so he never receives anything

Ds and I had only just registered as self employed so get nothing either from any scheme
Ds is on UC but then he too has taken to picking up odd jobs so what they pay him is very little each month.

I have a list of bills/direct debits in date order and have been doing odd days here and there and selling stuff around the house to raise enough to pay the bills.
Even things for 50p go up for sale. How long I can keep it up for is reliant on how much stuff I can sell before we have to say good bye to the tv, beds etc.

Dd who registered as SE when she was 16 is the only one who is eligible for anything as even then it is very little as it is based on her income from when she was establishing herself
She was just starting to pick up the more well paid work when everything went down hill.

We have applied for every supermarket job going and been rejected by every supermarket despite me having experience of shelf stacking and Dd having shop experience. We can both drive, Ds was just learning when we went into lockdown

Friend of Dds can’t drive and didn’t have any experience but did have A levels and was offered a job as a driver at one of the supermarkets Dd applied to.

We all applied to pick produce on a nearby farm. Again I have experience
Apparently the farmer took mainland EU workers as no one from the UK applied.

We have all applied for Care home work
Again we were all rejected.

Yet speaking to one woman who thought that everyone should lockdown and stay home (her and her dh are both wfh and on full salaries) She couldn’t quite grasp that for some people you need to work to pay the bills. She thought everyone got a payment from the government and you could claim your mortgage payments as part of housing benefit

I don't know why people try to compare employment under PAYE with self-employment.

Self employment means an element of risk if business goes down for WHATEVER reason. It could be illness, losing contracts, not being in demand any longer etc... there are no guarantee with self employment. Covid just happen to be more drastic with less control but doesn't change the element of risk associated with self employment.

Employees are covered under legal rights and that involves being paid unless being dismissed. In this instance, they are not being dismissed so it is fair they should co to use to be paid.

It sure sucks to be self employed at the moment, but that's part of the risk when at to.rs, self employed have the freedom that is priceless for many and often bank a higher income for a similar job.

You are comparing the in work benefits of PAYE and government support in in a crisis.

Apples and oranges.

But surely SE workers contribute to the nations coffers, so why shouldn't they be able to get support if they need it?

@dontdisturbmenow

I don't know why people try to compare employment under PAYE with self-employment.

Self employment means an element of risk if business goes down for WHATEVER reason. It could be illness, losing contracts, not being in demand any longer etc... there are no guarantee with self employment. Covid just happen to be more drastic with less control but doesn't change the element of risk associated with self employment.

Employees are covered under legal rights and that involves being paid unless being dismissed. In this instance, they are not being dismissed so it is fair they should co to use to be paid.

It sure sucks to be self employed at the moment, but that's part of the risk when at to.rs, self employed have the freedom that is priceless for many and often bank a higher income for a similar job.

But you're comparing two totally different things

Yes, being employed has certain in-work benefits, and being self-employed has different benefits, but that shouldn't have anything to do with the support people receive during a global pandemic.

If you've contributed and paid your taxes, you should be able to access the same level of support from the government, regardless of whether you're self-employed, employed, freelance or a business owner.

But surely SE workers contribute to the nations coffers, so why shouldn't they be able to get support if they need it?
Please don't talk sense. People of mumsnet don't understand that

Look at the workers who have had to stop working because of COVID, take peoples earnings, and decide on a level of help. Why does it matter if they are employed or self employed? What am I missing?

People voted for a Tory government who give little to no fucks about the plebs, tories gonna tory