First SEISS grant eligibility

Jeremy535897

The email you received was a standard email generated by a notification that you had ceased to trade in 2018/19 or 2019/20 (in your case on 14 March 2020). The problem with the guidance and the email is that it makes no provision for stopping and restarting trading. It assumes that anyone who stopped trading doesn't start again. In your case, however, that does not help.

The law says:
"3.2 A claim must be made by a qualifying person. 
3.3 A claim may only be made in relation to a trade the business of which has been adversely affected by coronavirus or coronavirus disease."

The law on qualifying persons says:
"4.1 A person is a qualifying person if the following conditions are met.
4.2 The person must-
(a) carry on a trade the business of which has been adversely affected by reason of circumstances arising as a result of coronavirus or coronavirus disease,
(b) have delivered a tax return for a relevant tax year on or before 23 April 2020,
(c) have carried on a trade in the tax years 2018-19 and 2019-20,
(d) intend to continue to carry on a trade in the tax year 2020-21,
(e) if that person is a non-UK resident or has made a claim under section 809B of ITA 2007 (claim for remittance basis to apply), certify that the person’s trading profits are equal to or more than the person’s relevant income for any relevant tax year or years,
(f) be an individual, and
(g) meet the profits condition."

Your problem is that as you ceased to trade on 14 March 2020, and will not start trading again until January 2021, at the time you made your claim for the grant, you cannot say you were carrying on a trade the business of which has been adversely affected by coronavirus.

vtoea

Jeremy535897 said:

The email you received was a standard email generated by a notification that you had ceased to trade in 2018/19 or 2019/20 (in your case on 14 March 2020). The problem with the guidance and the email is that it makes no provision for stopping and restarting trading. It assumes that anyone who stopped trading doesn't start again. In your case, however, that does not help.

The law says:
"3.2 A claim must be made by a qualifying person. 
3.3 A claim may only be made in relation to a trade the business of which has been adversely affected by coronavirus or coronavirus disease."

The law on qualifying persons says:
"4.1 A person is a qualifying person if the following conditions are met.
4.2 The person must-
(a) carry on a trade the business of which has been adversely affected by reason of circumstances arising as a result of coronavirus or coronavirus disease,
(b) have delivered a tax return for a relevant tax year on or before 23 April 2020,
(c) have carried on a trade in the tax years 2018-19 and 2019-20,
(d) intend to continue to carry on a trade in the tax year 2020-21,
(e) if that person is a non-UK resident or has made a claim under section 809B of ITA 2007 (claim for remittance basis to apply), certify that the person’s trading profits are equal to or more than the person’s relevant income for any relevant tax year or years,
(f) be an individual, and
(g) meet the profits condition."

Your problem is that as you ceased to trade on 14 March 2020, and will not start trading again until January 2021, at the time you made your claim for the grant, you cannot say you were carrying on a trade the business of which has been adversely affected by coronavirus.

Not being able to trade due to being pregnant(vulnerable group) at that time and also corona will it help in anyways? Had to stop trading because the work I was doing was providing zero protection against corona if proper protection and not being classed as vulnerable I would still be traiding for after march.

MattMattMattUK

vtoea said:

Not being able to trade due to being pregnant(vulnerable group) at that time and also corona will it help in anyways? 

I am not sure that being pregnant automatically classed you as vulnerable. 

vtoea said:
Had to stop trading because the work I was doing was providing zero protection against corona if proper protection and not being classed as vulnerable I would still be traiding for after march.

The difficulty here is that you declared that you had stopped trading on 14/03, people only normally do that when they intend to stop trading permanently, not just to take a few months off for maternity or otherwise. 

vtoea

MattMattMattUK said:

vtoea said:

Not being able to trade due to being pregnant(vulnerable group) at that time and also corona will it help in anyways? 

I am not sure that being pregnant automatically classed you as vulnerable. 

vtoea said:
Had to stop trading because the work I was doing was providing zero protection against corona if proper protection and not being classed as vulnerable I would still be traiding for after march.

The difficulty here is that you declared that you had stopped trading on 14/03, people only normally do that when they intend to stop trading permanently, not just to take a few months off for maternity or otherwise. 

To be honest the stopped trading I done it by mistake I didn't know at the time what will it actually do. But now it seems like it was a mistake from me without researching more and it screwed me over. 
Also from NHS 'But pregnant women have been included in the list of people at moderate risk (clinically vulnerable) as a precaution.'

Jeremy535897

One of the unfortunate aspects of these grants is that your mistakes are taken at face value, so, for example, people who put the wrong turnover on their applications for loans can't correct it, and people who declared their self employment income as employment income by accident can't get SEISS. However, Action 2 in the email gives you the option of correcting what you have said. I don't know what happens when you follow Action 2, but I don't think it helps. If, for example, you claimed you didn't cease to trade on 14 March 2020, but started your maternity period, you still face the problem that your trade was not adversely affected by coronavirus, because you didn't actually trade after 14 March. You would have to be able to show that you stopped actively trading because of coronavirus, but meant to continue to trade, and were just over eager to say you had ceased trading.

Grumpy_chap

Reading this as a whole, it does not look as though the OP qualified for the SEISS grant, nor made a mistake.  Maybe did something they later regret with the benefit of hindsight, but not a mistake at the time.  To qualify for SEISS, the criteria to be met include:

• Eligibility based upon past trading (three years up to end tax year 2018-19).  Given that the OP only started self-employment January 2019, even this may not have been met on the 50% income rule - what was the OP doing before?
• Trading and intend to continue to trade.  The OP declared 14th March that they ceased self-employment, which indicates do not intend to continue to trade or return to trade after maternity.  I would expect most self-employed taking maternity would not so swiftly declare the cease self-employment and it is likely the HMRC determine the OP declared that they stopped self-employment because they intended to become a full time mother after maternity period and not to return straight back to self-employment.
• Business impacted by coronavirus.  Because the OP had stopped trading for maternity (whether or not intending to return back to self-employment), the OP's sole-trader business was not negatively impacted by coronavirus and is not up until this point because the OP would have been on maternity and, presumably, had some other plan to maintain finances.

I do try to see the way that the argument can be put that the SEISS is available, and if first SEISS was available, then the latter SEISS grants would also have been available.

As far as I can tell, the OP claimed (and has been asked to re-pay) the first SEISS grant, but seems not to have claimed the later SEISS grants.  If that is correct, not claiming the later grants would seem to strengthen the HMRC view that the work stopped because of maternity leave and not because of coronavirus.

I struggle to see a way, on this one, that the OP can say they qualify for SEISS.  Regret declaring that they stopped self-employment on 14th March I understand, but now trying to declare that they qualify for SEISS is difficult.  The OP does not say when the submitted the 2019-20 tax return, but the first SEISS grant was announced 26th March so was known about when the OP prepared and submitted the tax return (which must have been after 5th April).