Self-Employment to PAYE temporarily - lose out on 80% Grant?

deanscheme

With the lockdown all my self-employment worked stopped leaving me with no income.
I looked into a low pay PAYE job in the short term so I have some income as I can't get benefit but have been told by the benefits office that if I take a new PAYE job I will likely not be able to get my 80% Self-Employment Grant in June.  I've checked with my MP and he doesn't know the answer either.

Jeremy535897

Why would the benefits office offer an opinion on this? It's not as simple as this. The eligibility criteria are:

"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."

If you continue to meet the criteria above in bold, there is no reason not to take a job. In particular, you have to intend to continue your business in 2020/21. But having asked one branch of officialdom and not liked the answer, logically you should confirm this with the right branch of officialdom, HMRC.

Hermann

Provided you meet the criteria posted above you are currently eligible regardless of any second jobs.

Bear in mind that is eligible which is not the same as guaranteed to receive payment.  Those eligible will have a form to complete to determine if the qualify for a payment. No one knows what is going to be on that form, not even HMRC, as I suspect it has even been written yet let alone published.