Self Employed Income Support and second business?

Gary1885

Hello!  This may seem an unusual scenario and I'm not sure if the Government have any specific advice on this, so I thought I'd ask here!  I'll try to give an overview of my circumstances:

Since the tax year 2017-18. I have been making a self-employed income in the region of £22,000 before tax (approximately).  The profits for the first two years have been significantly lower due to mileage expenses.  Due to relocation, my profits were set to increase significantly for the tax year - 2019-20 and even more so 2020-21.  As we all know, they use the following tax years to calculate 80% of your profits:

2016-17

2017-18

2018-19

My self-employed income is a live band, so as you can imagine there has been literally no work.  I was eligible for the Self-Employment Income Support scheme and was paid back in May, but I understand that the August payment will be lower.

I do have a full-time job - on which I was furloughed - but I am back at least for the time being.  The job itself is reasonably average in terms of salary, but as I have relocated and am paying rent plus my mortgage until I can sell my flat - I'm struggling to have anything left each month.  The mortgage holiday route is not an option for me for reasons I won't go into here!

So my question is, if I wanted to start another totally unrelated business in order to gain some temporary extra income (effectively to boost the income support up to what it would be this year), am I within my rights to do so?  Will the Government see this as me continuing to earn while claiming?  To be clear, I'm self employed but not registered as a business.

Many thanks in advance,

Gary

[Deleted User]

Under SEISS you can continue to work and earn from your self employed business, it is not a requirement of SEISS that you stop, only that you are impacted by the pandemic. As you are a sole trader there is no "other business" as you are the business, unless you wish to start a limited company with all that that involves. 

Jeremy535897

So my question is, if I wanted to start another totally unrelated business in order to gain some temporary extra income (effectively to boost the income support up to what it would be this year), am I within my rights to do so?  Will the Government see this as me continuing to earn while claiming?  To be clear, I'm self employed but not registered as a business.

You can have as many self employed businesses as you want, and work for all or any of them. This does not affect being furloughed as an employee, or entitlement to SEISS (so long as your original business will have been adversely affected by coronavirus from 14 July). What does "I'm self employed but not registered as a business" mean? Do you mean you are not registered for VAT? That would have no bearing on these grants.

Gary1885

MadMattUK said:

Under SEISS you can continue to work and earn from your self employed business, it is not a requirement of SEISS that you stop, only that you are impacted by the pandemic. As you are a sole trader there is no "other business" as you are the business, unless you wish to start a limited company with all that that involves. 

Thanks.  Yes, I understand that I am the business unless I register separate limited companies, but I just wanted to be sure that there wouldn't be some kind of rule that says that I - as a self employed individual - cannot claim money on the SEISS just because I have sought alternative sources of income.

Jeremy535897 said:

So my question is, if I wanted to start another totally unrelated business in order to gain some temporary extra income (effectively to boost the income support up to what it would be this year), am I within my rights to do so?  Will the Government see this as me continuing to earn while claiming?  To be clear, I'm self employed but not registered as a business.

You can have as many self employed businesses as you want, and work for all or any of them. This does not affect being furloughed as an employee, or entitlement to SEISS (so long as your original business will have been adversely affected by coronavirus from 14 July). What does "I'm self employed but not registered as a business" mean? Do you mean you are not registered for VAT? That would have no bearing on these grants.

OK, that makes sense, thanks.  I didn't mean VAT registration, but rather that I'm not registered as limited companies or anything, so there is no discernable difference between the different incomes as I can't put it through one company's books as opposed to the other, if that makes sense.

I think that's cleared it up though.  Thanks to you both.

Jeremy535897

If you start a new self employed business in a trade that is different to your existing self employment, you will need to keep separate records for each business and file separate SA103S/F forms for each when completing your tax return.