SEISS Review denied.

tightasafish

I was only Self Employed for the last month of 2016/17 and was PAYE for the rest of that year. I was SE for the whole of 17/18 and 18/19. The small amount of SE income in 16/17 has dragged my average right down so I asked for a review. I have just been informed that my review has been denied. I feel this is unjust. Any comments? Thank you in advance.

jjames1985

It's the way the system was set up.  if you feel it is unjust you can complain to your MP.  many people on here were telling people to not bother appealing these decisions because HMRC was just administering the scheme as it was laid out in law but well, they were ignored and here we are with all these appeals being rejected as expected.

scaifey07

I am in the same boat as you, but haven’t heard anything back yet, I guess it will be the same answer. Can’t see how hard it would be for them to just wipe that year out if they have time to read your review surely they can click a few buttons and adjust a few figures. 

Jeremy535897

scaifey07 said:

I am in the same boat as you, but haven’t heard anything back yet, I guess it will be the same answer. Can’t see how hard it would be for them to just wipe that year out if they have time to read your review surely they can click a few buttons and adjust a few figures. 

It's not just your few figures though, it's thousands. It is not going to happen.

Pauli2

Jeremy535897 said:

scaifey07 said:

I am in the same boat as you, but haven’t heard anything back yet, I guess it will be the same answer. Can’t see how hard it would be for them to just wipe that year out if they have time to read your review surely they can click a few buttons and adjust a few figures. 

It's not just your few figures though, it's thousands. It is not going to happen.

True unfortunately, most appeals or request for reviews are because the full year is taken into account despite someone only being se for a month in that tax year. 

Petriix

The scheme was poorly designed. It would have been trivial to iron out the anomalies but they just don't care. I doubt HMRC have any leeway for applying common sense to the decisions. Spare a thought for the poor souls who switched from tax credits to universal credit and consequently have their entire grant accounted for in the month they receive it. 

[Deleted User]

Petriix said:

The scheme was poorly designed. It would have been trivial to iron out the anomalies but they just don't care. I doubt HMRC have any leeway for applying common sense to the decisions. Spare a thought for the poor souls who switched from tax credits to universal credit and consequently have their entire grant accounted for in the month they receive it. 

The scheme was designed to be simple and quick to administrator, based on available and verified data. Once you start to complicate things and add in manual processes the speed of payment would fall dramatically. Around two and a half million people have now claimed SEISS, that means the system needs to be entirely automated to fund that kind of volume.
The system was not designed to be perfect, it was designed to help the majority of people very quickly. Some people will not be eligible, others will feel hard done by because they do not get 80% based on their most profitable year. The vast majority will feel thankful and grateful for getting anything.

samanon

tightasafish said:

I was only Self Employed for the last month of 2016/17 and was PAYE for the rest of that year. I was SE for the whole of 17/18 and 18/19. The small amount of SE income in 16/17 has dragged my average right down so I asked for a review. I have just been informed that my review has been denied. I feel this is unjust. Any comments? Thank you in advance.

I'm appealingly exactly this. By HMRC's own measure, if your self employed income (trading profit) doesn't at least equal your other income (non trading profit) over a tax year, you're not technically self employed in that year so it shouldn't be used in the calculations.

Their first response just reiterated their first calculation and completely ignored my point regarding the above. I've appealed again and asked for a call with a tax professional.

 I'll let you know how I get on!

samanon

tightasafish said:

I was only Self Employed for the last month of 2016/17 and was PAYE for the rest of that year. I was SE for the whole of 17/18 and 18/19. The small amount of SE income in 16/17 has dragged my average right down so I asked for a review. I have just been informed that my review has been denied. I feel this is unjust. Any comments? Thank you in advance.

I'm appealingly exactly this. By HMRC's own measure, if your self employed income (trading profit) doesn't at least equal your other income (non trading profit) over a tax year, you're not technically self employed in that year so it shouldn't be used in the calculations.

Their first response just reiterated their first calculation and completely ignored my point regarding the above. I've appealed again and asked for a call with a tax professional.

 I'll let you know how I get on!

Jeremy535897

"By HMRC's own measure, if your self employed income (trading profit) doesn't at least equal your other income (non trading profit) over a tax year, you're not technically self employed in that year so it shouldn't be used in the calculations."

@samanon, the words in bold are your wishful thinking. The government guidance states:

"Self-employed and contractor

A person is self-employed if they run their business for themselves and take responsibility for its success or failure.

Self-employed workers aren’t paid through PAYE, and they don’t have the employment rights and responsibilities of employees.

Someone can be both employed and self-employed at the same time, for example if they work for an employer during the day and run their own business in the evenings."

From https://www.gov.uk/employment-status/selfemployed-contractor

It wouldn't even matter if you were right, because paragraph 10 of the Treasury Direction says you look at the submitted tax returns, and if you have filed SA103F or SA103S for the relevant years showing self employed income, that is what counts for the grant:

"10. For the purposes of SEISS, amounts of trading profits and relevant income are determined by reference to a person’s tax returns as at 23 April 2020 but no account will be taken of any amendment made to a tax return on or after 6pm on 26 March 2020 or any contract settlement."

I know it seems harsh, but all your appeals will do is take up time at HMRC that would be better spent looking at appeals that have merit.

Kattermole

On Martin's show a couple of weeks ago he had Jim Harra from HMRC on and I recall him saying that in all the reviews they had carried out, they had found just one where it was their mistake. Obviously that might have changed since then but it's representative of how unlikely it is that your appeal will come to anything, especially when the government guidelines are being applied. They don't make discretionary decisions based on individual circumstances; they apply the legislation as it states. That means people will fall through the cracks and miss out. It's just the nature of such a broad-brush scheme. It's annoying and downright upsetting for people who are missing out through no fault of their own, but the issue isn't with HMRC. You need to campaign for a change to the legislation that they can then go and apply.