Self-employed workers able to apply for a grant of up to £2,500 a month

[Irial]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52053914

Self-employed workers will be able to apply for a grant of up to £2,500 a month to help them cope with the financial impact of coronavirus, the chancellor has announced.

The money will be paid in a single lump sum, but will not begin to arrive until the start of June at the earliest.

Rishi Sunak told the self-employed: "You have not been forgotten."

Plans for 80% wage subsidies for staff kept on by employers were announced last week.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

Not including this year's income, and equally weighting years are both kind of ropey tbh. There are of course self employed who have been for years, but for many a pattern of start up, hard graft, earn bugger all, reinvest, slowly get to profit is quite a normal pattern for self employment.

Nobody is asking employed people to receive a figure based on what they earned 4 years ago. I get the practicalities but it works out very badly for some.

[Neednewwellies]

@RedDiamond, thanks. It’s actually my sister. She’s an education consultant. She’s in regular work, often with local authorities but also private companies but she’s not self employed. She contracts for them for between 3mths and 1yr. They take her on like a temp effectively so she does earn through PAYE but only in short bursts and never on a permanent basis. She told me it’s like retail outlets taking on seasonal staff. They pay them through PAYE but they’re only contracted on a temp basis. She was due to finish with one client at the end of March. They ended that last week but are honouring paying her until the end of March. She was due to start a new one after Easter but that now seems to have been cancelled. She’s very worried and unsure where she falls with all this. Thanks

[marly11]

'To qualify, more than half of their income in these periods must come from self-employment.' Does that mean if 2028-19 I am 'less than half income is from self employed' but the precious 2 were mainly or fully self employed, that I am not eligible do you think?

[KoalasandRabbit]

I presumed you add up the 3 years to 2018-19 how much in employment, how much self-employment, if its over 50% self-employment income you are eligible (or in 2018-19 alone).

[Cattenberg]

Thanks KoalasandRabbit, I feared that was the case.

[rainbowwelly]

@marly


with a trading profit of less than £50,000 in 2018-19 or an average trading profit of less than £50,000 from 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19.
To qualify, more than half of their income in these periods must come from self-employment.

I'm guessing that means if you have at least half of all these periods combined.

[KoalasandRabbit]

It doesn't actually say so you could still be OK if they do each year separately.

[marly11]

@rainbowwelly thank you. I am really hoping that's the case. It would make a big difference to a lot of things.

[rainbowwelly]

Same! I've already stripped back my expenditure from my PAYE contract ending but there's still some bills I need to pay. I don't need much but being in travel it's errrm... hard at the moment. Trying to expand my skill set as quickly as possible but even trying to win clients and commissions is really hard with having the kids at home. I'm up until 1am at least tonight.

[rainbowwelly]

Just had an email from HMRC about the announcement. Doesn't necessarily mean I'm eligible but means they have my details on file which is positive.

[SoloSolow]

If you are self employed, shouldn't you have prepared for periods of inactivity, caused by illness, holidays, cancellation of contracts etc. and set aside a rainy day fund?

As another poster has said, maybe the fairest thing to do would be to give everyone the same set amount per week or month.

It is unfair to those who who are expected to continue to live on low benefit amounts whilst the government splashes the cash on other sections of society who have gained the most from capitalism, and at the prospect of living on low benefit amounts have insisted the goverment give them more.

If I was on benefits I'd be fuming.

[rainbowwelly]

Certainly in my field @SoloSolow there are huge issues with payments being made on time. There's also payment on publication, taking on work, spending on expenses and then the client sitting on the work for months at a time before I can event get paid. I personally have a slush fun but equally, in travel this could take years to get back to getting regular work. I've certainly planned for slow periods and losing work but not the entire industry being taken down for an indefinite amount of time. I don't think anybody could have predicted this.

[rainbowwelly]

Slush fund*

[rainbowwelly]

And certainly wouldn't have predicted having my kids at home for a huge chunk of time either.

[KoalasandRabbit]

Not really sure why the self-employed are supposed to have predicted a global virus closing schools and economies but the employed didn't need to. Never happened in my lifetime. I have savings for illness but already ill for a couple of years when this happened - it's not instead of that but on top of it.

[KoalasandRabbit]

I agree though that the fairest solution would have been universal and to ensure people had their basic needs covered.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

We had reserves to allow for reductions in business but with over 200 clients a total cessation wasnt covered by reserves.

We have business interruption insurance to cover for those scenarios only its not paying out. It would if it was smallpox. Or typhoid. Measles. But not a disease which didn't exist...

[StatisticallyChallenged]

Tbh I am inclined to agree Koalas, and it would have been easier to implement. Possibly with some sort of region weighting to account for housing cost variations.

[littlebitwooway]

Why does it not include 19/20? Surely that was filed in Jan for most people? A small amount have not yet but why not? Who are these late people? Small or big businesses? Why do they need 4 weeks to file it? That is rather a long time. Good news though.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

18/19 was jan deadline
19/20 filing opens 7th April

[StatisticallyChallenged]

My interpretation of the 4weeks grace to file

"We aren't even going to start on this til we've build the PAYE system so we might as well give em a month. Looks dead generous"

[gingerbread88]

I'm still a bit unclear on this. My husband is self employed and earned £38,000 2016-2017, £46,000 2017-2018 and £58,000 in 2018-2019 so that was an unusually good year. If they average it by taking the 3 yearly figures and dividing it, he will be under the £50k threshold. Are we stuffed for any help as his earnings were over the £50k for the last return only?
We rely on his income and he is still earning a bit but has already lost income and set to lose more as this carries on.
How do the self employed prove the loss of income too?
Thanks

[Opendraw]

Won’t be much karma as self employed who don’t pay the correct taxes have often done it for years like my DH painter friend. As a self employed person who declares my income it massively f@@ks me off

[Opendraw]

I wondered that too how on earth can you prove you have no work coming in? Also will they take partners earning into consideration.

[RUSU92]

Why does it not include 19/20? Surely that was filed in Jan for most people?

Because it goes from April 6th not Jan 1st.
The tax year is 06/04/2019 to 05/04/2020

I presume the people they're giving extra time to are late filing LAST year's accounts.