Self Employed Scheme extension

whizzywoo

Davers123 said:

I have been told I cannot claim and afternoon talking to a person on HMRC webchat I am told he will escalate it but they look at escalations from 18May. Why could they not look and sort?? An idea let’s all write to our MPs and complain. As HMRC say there is nothing wrong with their system. If there is admit it and people would understand. 

You have jumped onto a thread which is about an entirely different aspect of the Self Employed grant scheme.
You need to start your own thread if you have a question or maybe tag it onto your already existing question which is here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6117369/self-employed#latest

_nate

Grumpy_chap said:

I think everyone should plan on the assumption that there will not be any extension to either SEISS or CJRS. 

CJRS has already been extended so we are questioning whether SEISS will be extended to match.

Grumpy_chap

CJRS now covers until end of June.  SEISS is for three months, but maybe those months are April - May - June?

There are other differences between the two schemes, so direct comparisons are not necessarily correct.  In particular, under CJRS the employee cannot work while the claim is live but under SEISS, the self-employed employee is encouraged to work if they can do so.

Give the costs of both schemes, I am not sure how the country can afford it if extended in any big way.  Maybe, very targeted to specific industries, but not an across-the-board 80% scheme continuing.

Either way, the priority for every company / self-employed is to plan how they will be able to restart work and meet the new restrictions such as social distancing.  As the Government then release the restrictions, these businesses will be ready to hit the ground running.  It seems prudent to think that the approach of assuming no more grant will be forthcoming is the best way to prepare and if circumstances then justify the extension of the grant period (which would mean an extension of restrictions), that still leaves the business ready and raring to go (but for Government imposed restrictions).

Jeremy535897

An answer by HMRC to a question put to them confirmed that SEISS is currently designed to be for the 3 months to 31 May. There may be calls for it to be extended, but who knows?

_nate

Jeremy535897 said:

An answer by HMRC to a question put to them confirmed that SEISS is currently designed to be for the 3 months to 31 May. There may be calls for it to be extended, but who knows?

Interesting - where did they say this? It may be extended, it may not, but there was outcry when self-employed people were initially given no assistance, and then this scheme was supposed to provide parity with employed people. So it really should have been extended in tandem.

I suppose we will see whether and for how long they extend the other scheme by following whatever is announced on Sunday: perhaps there will be an announcement on Monday.

Jeremy535897

HMRC have a dialogue with various professional bodies. This one is published here:
https://www.tax.org.uk/policy-and-technical/covid-19/self-employment-income-support-scheme