SELF-EMPLOYMENT GRANT LOWER THAN PROMISED 80% OF PROFITS? Please share your experiences here

bobbooo

As I previously warned in this thread, there's a huge flaw in the self-employment scheme that means many are receiving less than the 80% of their profits promised by the government, if they started being self-employed partway through the year, due to low partial year profits in this first year being taken effectively as a full-year profit in terms of the average calculation. We are now seeing a flood of people posting about this on the forum, and I'm sure this will continue as more people make their grant claims in their allocated time slots over the next few days. If you are affected by this issue, please post your experience below (and re-post them here if you have already in other threads). You can give as much or as little detail as you like, but it would be helpful to get a bigger picture if you could give the percentage of your actual average monthly profits you are receiving.

Note, this thread is only for those who have been unfairly disadvantaged by this flaw in the scheme to share their experiences and hopefully garner some attention from MSE / the media in order for HMRC to fix this issue. These people have lost their livelihoods and were relying on a promised 80% of their profits to see them through these incredibly difficult times, which they are not receiving, with some receiving half what they were promised. Please leave snarky, snide, unsympathetic comments to other threads (if you must make them at all).

And yes, I am aware there are many others who have been disadvantaged even worse than this, and I also sympathize with them and suggest they create similar threads. I feel this issue deserves its own thread though due to the fact that unlike the other flaws in the system, there are easy fixes that HMRC could make in order to solve this issue, and putting pressure on them via the media could effect this change. I have already been approached by a major newspaper over this issue, and I have heard from others who have been told by HMRC representatives only the months you were working could be taken into consideration (possibly via an appeal), so there is definitely a glimmer of hope for a fix here.

[Deleted User]

 Why don't you just post on those threads instead of asking them to be duplicated here? Waste of time duplicating posts 

bobbooo

_shel said:

 Why don't you just post on those threads instead of asking them to be duplicated here? Waste of time duplicating posts 

Because there are already many such threads spread out over the forum that are hard to find now, so it would be very helpful to collate all experiences into one thread in order to see the scale of the problem and direct the media / Martin Lewis / HMRC / the government to the issue.

jjames1985

bobbooo said:

_shel said:

 Why don't you just post on those threads instead of asking them to be duplicated here? Waste of time duplicating posts 

Because there are already many such threads spread out over the forum that are hard to find now, so it would be very helpful to collate all experiences into one thread in order to see the scale of the problem and direct the media / Martin Lewis / HMRC / the government to the issue.

there's one literally two threads below this one.  not exactly hard to find.

hunnie

From the title of the thread, I think the OP was hoping to gather them all together in one thread.

deejaybee

This scheme and furloughing were literally bought in overnight,  would normally be planned and adjusted over months and months if not years... Time was of the essence, if they had to allow for every single individual circumstance, then people ( and media ) would have been complaining it was taking too long...

Probably be a No Win No Fee mob advertising soon...

jjames1985

hunnie said:

From the title of the thread, I think the OP was hoping to gather them all together in one thread.

presumably his thread, which is clearly the most important one out of them all!

[Deleted User]

Nobody was promised anything to start with and the self employed were left by the wayside as was always going to be that much more difficult to find a system that could be adapted to the majority of the self employed and there will be many thousands that fall through the gap.

I am both self employed and employed working part time on a zero hours contract and as a result of my income was not furloughed and did not meet the criteria for the self employed grant due to income therefore entitled to oy Universal credit. I don't blame the Government at all and in fact am lucky enough that I got something. However what I received will of course not be enough to support the many that need to pay bills, rent and put food in the table. 

Maybe just be greatful for what you have as it sounds far better than Universal Credit that many of us have had to accept. 

47Revisited

There is no Flaw. That is is the criteria they have set for the scheme. It may seem unfair, but many, people are just glad that they are able to claim something from the scheme. You have entitlement, so claim what you are entitled too.
You are correct though,There are a lot of people worse off.

bobbooo

I'll get this thread back on topic by sharing my experience. I started my business on the very last day of the 16/17 tax year. Obviously my profits were minimal for this one day, but have still been used in a three-year average calculation alongside full-year profits for the 17/18 and 18/19 tax years. This has resulted in my grant representing 53% of my actual average profits, which is not enough for my business to survive. The absurdity and arbitrary unfairness of this is clear when you consider that if I'd started trading one day later, I would be receiving the 80% of my profits that everyone should be getting and was originally promised by the government.

slacky1230

I went self employed january 2017 being self employed for 2 months that tax year plus all the expense of starting out I actually made a loss of 1.5k. Calculating it over 36 months rather than the 26 months or the 2 full tax years means I'm down about 2k