SEISS grant and pension contribution

[ScandiNoir]

Hi, can anyone help?
I have spent nearly an hour today waiting to speak to HMRC...will try again next week but in the meantime wondered if anyone here is an accountant or FA and may know the answer.

I have luckily been in receipt of all three SEISS grants totalling about 4k. My profit for this tax year looks like being about 6k. I usually make around 12k profit so the grants have really kept me afloat.

This will be my last full (tax)year of self employment as I'm now 60 and I haven't got the energy required to build it all up again after covid so I'm keen to maximise what I can pay into my sipp. As the grants are classed as taxable income am I able to add them to my actual earned profit for the purposes of pension contribution?

So contribution of £4800 or £8000?

If you know the answer I'd really appreciate a link to some official documentation supporting it.
TIA

I'm an accountant and we've not yet been told about how the grant is taxed, - we know it "is" taxable, but not whether it's classed as business profits. I don't think HMRC have decided yet. Not only does it matter for pensions, but also for whether there's NIC on it, whether past losses can be set against it, etc. Perhaps you could check with your IFA as they'll be getting asked the question regularly and may have more of an educated guess as I'm sure the pension firms will have been asking HMRC the same question.

Thanks for your reply, seems strange that even professionals seem not to have been given clear info on this. HMRC need to decide ...I think there will be a lot of these queries before the end of March!