Support for self-employed

kerrygreene19

I am an interior designer with over 15 years experience in show-home design. I was made unemployed in October 2018 and unable to find suitable employment in my area and so became self-employed, freelancing for a company 80 miles from my home. In that tax year over the 5 months as self-employed I earned on a average 1k per month. I married and relocated to Essex in may 2019 and struggled to find employed work in my new area and so continued freelancing. I have a tax return to submit shortly showing a similar average income of 1k per month. My work has now ceased and I was very anxious to hear that the support I will received will only be based on the 2018/2019 tax return and will not be pro-rated, giving me an expected income of less than 350 pounds per month. I feel I am now being penalised for not being employed. If I had taken an unskilled minimum wage job I would be receiving more than 3 x times the amount of support with the government system that is in place.
Just checking, does anyone know for sure if my "employed income" for that tax year will be taken into account at all???

Jeremy535897

I don't follow your question. You started self employment in October 2018. What happened after 2018/19 may affect eligibility for, but not the amount of, the grant. The first question to be asked is whether your self employment income in 2018/19 exceeded your other taxable income, which will include whatever you earned as an interior designer according to your P45 for 2018/19. I doubt it will, and that would preclude you from getting any grant under the self employed income support scheme.

Hermann

Check the eligibilty, note it includes that you remain trading when you apply and also that you intend to continue trading in 20/21.

You can apply if you’re a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership and you:

• have submitted your Income Tax Self Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018-19
• traded in the tax year 2019-20
• are trading when you apply, or would be except for COVID-19
• intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020-21
• have lost trading/partnership trading profits due to COVID-19

Your self-employed trading profits must also be less than £50,000 and more than half of your income come from self-employment. This is determined by at least one of the following conditions being true:

• having trading profits/partnership trading profits in 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these profits constitute more than half of your total taxable income
• having average trading profits in 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these profits constitute more than half of your average taxable income in the same period

If you started trading between 2016-19, HMRC will only use those years for which you filed a Self-Assessment tax return.

Then check the how the payment will be calculated if you qualify for payment. Note we don't know how you qualify for payment yet as that will be based on a form that will be sent out and no one knows whats on that form yet.

How much you’ll get

You’ll get a taxable grant which will be 80% of the average profits from the tax years (where applicable):

• 2016 to 2017
• 2017 to 2018
• 2018 to 2019

To work out the average HMRC will add together the total trading profit for the 3 tax years (where applicable) then divide by 3 (where applicable), and use this to calculate a monthly amount.

It will be up to a maximum of £2,500 per month for 3 months.

We’ll pay the grant directly into your bank account, in one instalment.