Self employed what policy would you like to see the government introduce?

[DreamChaser23]

would you be happy with the 80 percent of salaries applied to you as well say your average last 3 month income?

I feel that this is a step that will have to happen as around 5 million or more are self employed and they deserve the same level of support as everyone else.

Fingers crosses something could be announced this week for all the self employed.

Nicola Sturgeon said this afternoon that the Scottish government are waiting for measures to protect the self employed from the British government, following her advice for non essential shops to close today. So help should be coming but I'm not sure what form this will take.

The problem with helping the self employed is making it fair but also being able to administer it. There's no central, up to date database of what people earn like there is with PAYE. My last tax return submitted in January was for my earnings up till the start of April 2019, almost a full year ago so not a reliable benchmark of what I'm earning now. Means tested help, like averaging wages, would not be feasible in a situation like we're facing atm where people need financial support now.

I think they'll be looking at some kind of lump sum payment, either based on NMW or a universal basic income - enough for most (but definitely not all) to live on but, unfortunately for many, not anywhere near what they would ordinarily earn.

Truthfully I don’t know but something...anything at this point 😂

Both dh and I are self employed, we’ll lose our house if we have to rely on uc. I’m hoping they’ll offer something else, we are employed by our company and have a small amount of PAYE but majority of earnings are taken as dividends as and when possible. There must be a way the government could pay us a percentage just so we can pay bills and mortgage and have money to survive. All dividends have been submitted as part of self assessment so HMRC know what we have earnt the last 20 years.

I think that because self employed earnings can be so variable over different times of the year it will be really complicated to work out which is why it’s taking so long.

I think they should have just done a universal basic income for everyone then sorted it out through the tax system later on.