2021 Budget. Self employed shafted again?

Thrugelmir

Michael_Bear said:

Self employed are also lucky the changes to national insurance to increase their contribution which Rishi talked alot about last April seems to have been forgotten. Probably balances out.

The 23rd March is tax day.  When a range of consultations will be published. Far from forgotten. If people want benefits in the future then they'll need to contribute towards them. There's no free lunches in this world. 

Pennywise

Michael_Bear said:

Self employed are also lucky the changes to national insurance to increase their contribution which Rishi talked alot about last April seems to have been forgotten. Probably balances out.

Nothing "lucky" about being asked to pay equivalent NIC to employees for fewer "benefits" than an employee would get.  Self employed NIC is at a lower rate because self employed sickness/maternity/unemployment benefits are less.  

Pennywise

Grumpy_chap said:

Pennywise said:

JamoLew said:

It's 80% more than my son who got made redundant last Oct gets - be thankful you get something

Also 80% more than the 3 million excluded self employed have received over the last year!

According to the ONS (https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/coronavirusandselfemploymentintheuk/2020-04-24#:~:text=By the fourth quarter (Oct,up from 12% in 2000.) there are only around 5 million self-employed.  

For your statement "3 million excluded self employed " to hold true, there would have to be the large majority of self employed not covered by any of the support schemes.  That is simply not credible.

Different definitions.  The 5 million doesn't include directors of their own limited companies who are "legally" not self employed for tax reasons, but are self employed for benefits nor does it include other "workers" who are taxed as self employed but in reality they're employees!  710k directors of their own limited companies, 790k "other" employees, 1.6 million self employed.
The breakdown is shown in their website https://www.excludeduk.org/three-million-breakdown
The 1.6 is what you need to compare to the 5 which is around a third and is perfectly reasonable given some of the crazy exclusion reasons (i.e. didn't start s/e until 2019, the 50:50 rule applying to income that's ceased, those earning over £50k etc).

Grumpy_chap

Pennywise said:

Different definitions.  The 5 million doesn't include directors of their own limited companies who are "legally" not self employed for tax reasons, but are self employed for benefits nor does it include other "workers" who are taxed as self employed but in reality they're employees!  710k directors of their own limited companies, 790k "other" employees, 1.6 million self employed.
The breakdown is shown in their website https://www.excludeduk.org/three-million-breakdown
The 1.6 is what you need to compare to the 5 which is around a third and is perfectly reasonable given some of the crazy exclusion reasons (i.e. didn't start s/e until 2019, the 50:50 rule applying to income that's ceased, those earning over £50k etc).

I interpret the ONS link I provided earlier to specifically include the "self-employed" in thought only and it specifically states as much:
"Self-employed people are those who define themselves as working for themselves, rather than receiving a wage or salary from an employer."

That definition "define themselves as working for themselves" clearly includes more than simply sole-traders, who are legally self-employed.

[Deleted User]

Everyone for shafted, except Tory chums.

unholyangel

Pennywise said:

JamoLew said:

It's 80% more than my son who got made redundant last Oct gets - be thankful you get something

Also 80% more than the 3 million excluded self employed have received over the last year!

Not necessarily. The 3 million excluded figure has been done to death on here, but suffice to say it is made up based on worst case scenario - for example it presumes all sole owner directors have been excluded. When in fact cjrs, bounce back loans, rates grants and other local authority grants were available to many of them. If none of those were then there was also universal credit. 

But they consider themselves "excluded from meaningful support" because they didn't get Seiss, when some of them could be in receipt of more than someone receiving Seiss. 

It's also not like they sent round a poll, asking people if they felt they were excluded. And they were good enough to take donations to fund their (founders/organisers) professions to personally benefit from the exposure. 

SomeMadeUpName

The reason that payment for the 4th SEISS is delayed a month is to give HMRC time to process 2019/20 tax returns submitted uupto the extended deadline and so bring in an extra 600,000 people to the scheme. Hardly shafted imo. The SEISS has looked after many self employed at a level they never expected.

Pennywise

SomeMadeUpName said:

The reason that payment for the 4th SEISS is delayed a month is to give HMRC time to process 2019/20 tax returns submitted uupto the extended deadline and so bring in an extra 600,000 people to the scheme. Hardly shafted imo. The SEISS has looked after many self employed at a level they never expected.

And furlough has looked after many employed at a level they never expected, and even better that the 50:50 rule nor the £50k limit applies to employees!  Answers on a postcard please as to why employees get more support than self employed?

Grumpy_chap

Pennywise said:

Answers on a postcard please as to why employees get more support than self employed?

Higher contributions to the welfare state - particularly NI contributions, but also income tax generally.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

It looks like some of those who will potentially be eligible for the first time have a few extra hoops to go through before being able to claim SEISS 4.

https://www.icaew.com/insights/tax-news/2021/mar-2021/preverification-checks-for-new-seiss-claims