WIBU To have claimed the SE grant when I've not technically lost any money?

[Purleaseee]

But payments have been late?

Technically I am not earning less overall however, I have had payments be delayed longer than usual.

I have got myself a bit worried about the fact that I claimed the grant for SE when I suppose technically I've not lost money in the grand scheme of things, but have just had to wait longer to receive it.

I have saved emails/messages from clients where they have said they can't pay until X date due to the current situation. Is that enough do you think?

If you have enough cash reserves in business to mitigate the late payments then I don't think it's appropriate to take the grant. However, if the late payments will have a directly negative impact on the solvency of your business then YANBU.

Take the grant. You don't know for sure what long term impact Covid19 might have.

Like all benefits: if you meet the qualifying criteria you are entitled.
It sounds like your cash flow has taken a bit of a hit, even if it does get paid in the end.
I would take it.
If things straighten out and your feeling flush once all this is over you can always pay it forward by donating to a charity.

I think we possibly could have scraped by short term but if this is a common occurrence (which it seems to be), it would send us under at some point. Smaller jobs are not too much of a problem but we've had some larger jobs which come with larger initial outlay that have had us worried.

There's your answer then. Take the money and don't give it another thought

For example, we recently had a job where the client was supposed to pay a large amount of funds on receipt of the invoice. They didn't pay it for over 30 days. We managed to get by but by the skin of our teeth.

Take it.

You don't know for sure you will ever see the money - what if they can't afford to pay you in 3 months, or 6 months? Right now, you don't have the income you expected.

I've claimed it, because although my business is ticking over fairly normally, I was due to attend 2 big events as a stallholder (really big household name type events) which have both been cancelled. I've got £1000s worth of stock ready for them which I now don't know if I'll be able to shift. This year was meant to be the year I really started to expand into selling at big events and I've spent untold hours building up the stock for the ones I had planned. So although my income hasn't dropped yet from last year's average, it was meant to be significantly higher!

Thanks. I just worry because when it comes to submitting our accounts, I don't think there will be any noticeable downturn for the year as a whole. It's just the individual payments took longer to be received.

It's for if your business has been affected, not you personally. Think like a businessperson, like the big companies backed by billionaires who are claiming government support. It has affected your cash flow, regardless of whether you've made do in your personal life or not.

We had this same dilemma.. do we/don't we claim.. at the time we weren't financially affected but there was a very strong threat of it.. in the end I claimed for my husband as I was also about to start Mat leave and knew if he did loose out on work we couldn't manage!
I'm glad we did because he's been out of work for the last 2 weeks and no sign of things improving in the short term!!

If people aren't paying and delaying payments are they likely to continue to defer them.. you're entitled to the help so take it!! X

My dh is self employed and has claimed the grant, however he's only keeping it just incase.
He says the government website is very "grey area" on this and is worried hmrc may ask for it back at the end of the tax year if evidence shows he didn't need it.

As long as you didn't lie and your accountant thinksc it's fine, it's fine. If everything gets paid so you have no losses and want to, then you could pay it back. HMRC likely won't request it back if it was legitimate and certainly won't charge interest if you used it legitimately to tide you through.

Tesco were happy to accept around £600m in business rates reduction and then shortly afterwards paid their shareholders dividends of around £600m... so please take the financial help the government have offered, use it to help the economy by spending it!

Yes it's worrying to know whether to claim or not and how affected you have to me. I have lost business, though not as much as I feared I would at first. But I'm thinking also about whether I will be affected long-term, because the business I would usually be developing right now by starting to get to know new clients isn't happening. Moreover, my work now is less efficient than it was, and if it has to continue like this longer term, I will probably lose more. And both of these could well have a longer term effect - but it is hard to predict.

I remind myself that Boris said the other day, when asked whether self-employed people would be likely to isolate if phoned by a track and trace person, because they wouldn't be able to earn anything or be eligible for sick pay - he said that they should use the grant, or other benefits that they were entitled to. So if the government is expecting people to be able to use the grant in the case of an unplanned situation of having to isolate, then they must expect people to apply for it in advance, not knowing for sure just how badly they have been or will be affected.

@Branbleberries

Yes it's worrying to know whether to claim or not and how affected you have to me. I have lost business, though not as much as I feared I would at first. But I'm thinking also about whether I will be affected long-term, because the business I would usually be developing right now by starting to get to know new clients isn't happening. Moreover, my work now is less efficient than it was, and if it has to continue like this longer term, I will probably lose more. And both of these could well have a longer term effect - but it is hard to predict.

I remind myself that Boris said the other day, when asked whether self-employed people would be likely to isolate if phoned by a track and trace person, because they wouldn't be able to earn anything or be eligible for sick pay - he said that they should use the grant, or other benefits that they were entitled to. So if the government is expecting people to be able to use the grant in the case of an unplanned situation of having to isolate, then they must expect people to apply for it in advance, not knowing for sure just how badly they have been or will be affected.

Oooh I haven't seen that BJ said that but it's interesting. They have not made clear that this is part of the purpose of the grant. I was under the impression it was only for if your business has already suffered. If you are going to be expected to use it in the event your business or income suffers in future then surely every self employed person absolutely must claim?!

It was a comment made in answer to a question someone asked, so not sure how 'official' the advice is, but it was in there somewhere! He was listing various forms of support for self-employed people, and I suppose he would argue that it wasn't necessarily a specific answer to that precise question, given his usual vague waffling, but it certainly seemed clear to me. It was maybe a day or two before the annoucement about the second grant, when all the track and trace stuff was starting up.

The only quote I can find briefly is one from the press conference on 28 May, which is not as clear as I remember, so I suspect it's not the one.

"Will there be a compensation scheme implemented? And Carol, what I can certainly tell you is that we will do everything we can to support those who, obviously the furlough schemes remain in place, all the loans that we’re giving to business, the bounce back loans, the support for the self employed, you’ll be hearing more about. But those who face temporarily losing their income as a result of this will be helped. "

I'm sure there was something else more directly that mentioned the self-employed scheme, which made people think all of a sudden that it was much more likely to be continued, whereas up to that people, the indications had been that it was quite likely not to be. I'm sure somewhere there is a more specific question regarding how likely self employed people were to isolate when they could lose pay, and he was more specific in his answer. Could it be the liaison committee perhaps.

You should take it, many other people/ businesses have that probably dont really need it, scout/ brownie groups because they pay rates are intitled to it and have claimed but haven't really lost that amount of money for example.

I haven't taken it because I've actually been busier. Thinking again after this thread though. I also expect my tax to increase when we have to pay for all of this. It's tricky, I'm a freelancer and obviously if I get ill with the virus I won't earn at all.