Police Officer on Career Break & Part Time Self Employed - Advise please

kimbopringo

Good Evening,

I am seeking advice as I feel my situation is quite unique and complicated, which in turn is causing me quite a lot of anxiety.

In relation to my situation, and specifically the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme;

I understand the grants are calculated based on a tax returns for 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19.

I became self-employed within that time, and have tax returns for 2017/18 and 2018/19 only. As such, I understand that my ‘total profit’ over those two financial years would be used.

         i.            2017/18 – I made a loss

       ii.            2018/19 – my profit was £1288.

 

Advice, from the Money Saving Expert, states; ‘You must earn more than half of your total income from self-employment. This must have been the case for either your 2018/19 tax return or the average of your 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19 tax returns (or both).’

     iii.            During 2017/18 and 2018/19 – I was working for the Police. I left in October 2019. I was not earning more than half of my total income from self-employment during this time. I was earning more with the Police.

a)       Does this therefore rule me out of the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme entirely?

     iv.             The MSE advises that the HMRC will contact those eligible directly, "once the scheme is operational, which is likely to be end of May/June. However, I don’t want to wait, only to find out that I am not eligible, and should have claimed UC all along.

 

       v.            I have spoken to the Police, as I am currently on a career break, and they inform me that I am not entitled to be placed on furlough nor entitled to any money from them.

Best Wishes.

Hermann

If I'm understanding you correctly then at no point was self employment your main source of income therefore you are not eligible for the self employment scheme.

Perhaps Universal Credit if you don't already get tax credits.

Whats been providing income since Oct 19?

Self employed scheme criteria....

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.