One week left to claim self employed grants

The third window for the Self Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) is open for claims until the 29th of January.

The value of the grant you can apply for is calculated at 80% of your average monthly trading profits for the three tax years ending 5th April 2019, covering a 3 month period. With the maximum amount, you can claim is restricted to £7,500. It's to cover November 2020 to January 2021.

To be eligible for the third Grant you must:

have been eligible for the first and second SEISS claims. You can still be eligible even if you did not make a claim.
have traded in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 tax years.

And one of the following must be relevant to your situation:

You are trading but have been impacted by reduced demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
You have been trading but are temporarily unable to do so due to Covid-19 pandemic.
You reasonably believe that there will be a significant reduction in your trading profit covering the period 1st November to 29th January 2020.

What is a significant reduction?

When deciding whether the reduction is significant, you need to consider your wider business circumstances. You cannot claim for a reduction in profit due to an increase in costs such as PPE equipment or if the reduction is because you went on holiday and you had to self isolate afterwards.

HMRC examples of what is and what is not allowable can be found on the GOV.UK website.

The portal for claims is now open and you have until the 29th of January to make your claim.

To make your claim go to the GOV.UK website, you'll need your:

Unique Taxpayers Reference number.
National Insurance number.
Government Gateway ID and password.
Bank account and sort code.

You'll need to keep a record of the amount claimed, your claim reference number along with evidence of your entitlement. That is evidence to show that at the time of making the claim you had reason to believe that the trading profits were going to be significantly reduced. And to show the impact and reduction in your business activity across the period from November to January 2021 inclusive.

Don't forget the grant will need to be reflected within your self-employed accounts and will be liable to tax and national insurance.

The eligibility criteria are tighter than in respect of the first two SEISS claims so don't be surprised if the HMRC wants to talk to us before you make the claim.

If you need a hand?

We're a West Bridgford based accountancy firm who help clients across Nottingham and the rest of the UK. We've been helping many of our clients navigate the help available and we can help you too. Get in touch.