SEISS question

rewindrooms

Hello, first of all, apologies for this rambling post! I have been judged eligible for the first and second SEISS payments but I just have a nagging worry in the back of my head about it.
So, my income from the last 3 years SE has accounted for 75%, 100% and 52% of my total income (it was down to 52% last year as I took on full time employment alongside my self employment).
Ok, so all of this makes me eligible, but my worry is that for 2019-20 my employment income has increased but my self employment is way down (it has been a terrible 8 months for my SE work) with SE only around 15% of my total income for the year. Without Covid I think it would have been around 35%. Does it matter that for 2019-20 I'm nowhere near hitting SE being 50% of my income? Or is it irrelevant because my SE income was well over 50% of my total income for the 3 previous years?
Thank you! 

ProDave

The only criteria is that you "intend to trade" in 2020/21  It sets no requirements of how much you earn, just that you intend to carry on.  your SE earnings met the requirements on the eligible dates.

rewindrooms

Thank you. Yes, I was worried that my SE income for both 2019-20 and 2020-21 will be nowhere near 50% of my total income but as you say it was for the three years prior, so I guess it is fine and I am just over worrying that they'll retrospectively add in a clause about 2019-20 income. I spend a lot of.my time finding things to worry about Thank you for your reply. 

Grumpy_chap

2019-20 income is not considered as part of SEISS eligibilility and I very much doubts it will be changed retrospectively as to do so would open up to claims from all those who were newly self-employed and had no trading history but, miraculously, their turnover was exactly that required to make the 3-year average eligible for the maximum SEISS.

macman

The whole point of SEISS was that it had to be based on self-assessment return data that HMRC already held, so that analysis and payment would be rapid. Hence it was calculated on the last 3 years: 2019/19, 2017/18, and 2016/17.
This applies equally to tranche 1 and tranche 2, because for both closing dates, very few people would have already submitted their returns for 2019/20, which are not due until 31/1/21 anyway.