Maternity and Self Employed

DBO3

Hi.
My wife is a self employed nail technican who is on maternity at the minute ending June. She currently receives maternity allowance bi-weekly. Her taxes are up to date and paid for the last few years.
My question is - 
Is she eligible to receive the self employed payments even though she is on maternity leave (similar to how the self employed will receive the payments yet can continue to work?). If so will it be based on her taxed income pre maternity allowance?
If not, and the scheme is running June and beyond if current restrictions are still inplay, will the scheme automatically pick her up when her maternity leave and allowance ends?

poppy12345

She needs to have traded in tax years 2019 to 2020. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-a-grant-through-the-coronavirus-covid-19-self-employment-income-support-scheme

Hermann

Eligibility is based partly on her self employed earnings up to April 2019. Any earnings since then are irrelevant.

The other elements of eligibility she needs to satisfy are the she would currently be trading but for Covid-19 and also that she intends to continue  self employment in 2020/21.

So the element that might be of concern is the 'would be currently trading but for COVID 19'. Does being on maternity count as no longer trading as self employed? And bearing in mind she intended to return from maternity part way through the lockdown has her trade reduced overall due to Covid-19?

It sounds like at the end of the year she would submit a tax return as self employed for the year so you possibly could consider her as currently trading.
If she lost some of the trade due to Covid-19 rather than maternity you possibly could satisfy that criteria.

I think until the claim form is published you won't know the answer as we don't yet know how the self employed actually qualify there status and loss in detail.

Possibly some more knowledge forum members might know of something more definitive on how being on maternity affects your self employed status to satisfy that particular criteria.

DBO3

She was working up until sept/oct 2019 before going off on Maternity so that is trading in the tax year? (To poster 1).
Thanks for your post Hermann. Yea thats it she would be trading from June so thats what i was thinking would we need to get ahead of this if the restrictions continue.

Hermann

DBO3 said:

She was working up until sept/oct 2019 before going off on Maternity so that is trading in the tax year? (To poster 1).
Thanks for your post Hermann. Yea thats it she would be trading from June so thats what i was thinking would we need to get ahead of this if the restrictions continue.

I would expect that so long as she submitted a tax return with over 50% self employed income for 2018/19 she will be contacted to apply, at that point hopefully the claim form will make it clearer if she does actually qualify for a grant.