SEISS Grant Confusion

alanden2021

I have been self employed my entire working life and always filled my tax returns on time. I started an employed job in July 2020 whilst continuing with my self employed work or at least that was the plan. Unfortunately due to covid I had to shield as was clinically extremely vulnerable. This meant I was unable to carry on with my self employed work although I do now plan to do so. I suppose my question is does the fact that I started a job in july 2020 effect my eligibility for the SEISS grant? The guidance seems to state that the grant is based on the 2019-2020 where 100% of my income was from self employment. Many thanks for any advice     

Pennywise

One of the criteria is that you need to confirm that you "intend to keep trading in 2021 to 2022"?

Do you?

What are you doing to start getting self employed work again, now that the restrictions have been removed?

HMRC will undoubtedly be checking the 21/22 tax returns to check that people who claimed SEISS grants continued to trade as self employed.  If your 21/22 tax return shows little or no income from self employment, expect an enquiry letter from them.  So at the very least you need to prove "intent", i.e. tendering for work, marketing, advertising, etc.

ChippieSteve

If you received official notification of mandatory shielding in place, then you'll be fine, just keep the letters as proof. Bear in mind though that if you took a PAYE job in July 2020, that is going to count towards your turnover and that could push you over the cliff for the full 80% grant. Also be aware that if your PAYE employment started during a period of mandatory shielding, HMRC might take a dim view and stop any payment or, worst case scenario, pay out then ask for it back next year.

It would also be wise to make sure that you can show you have resumed trading, or made reasonable efforts to resume, in the 2021/22 tax year. If you can't show that, I'd be quite wary of applying for grant 5.

sam8787

ChippieSteve said:

If you received official notification of mandatory shielding in place, then you'll be fine, just keep the letters as proof. Bear in mind though that if you took a PAYE job in July 2020, that is going to count towards your turnover and that could push you over the cliff for the full 80% grant. Also be aware that if your PAYE employment started during a period of mandatory shielding, HMRC might take a dim view and stop any payment or, worst case scenario, pay out then ask for it back next year.

It would also be wise to make sure that you can show you have resumed trading, or made reasonable efforts to resume, in the 2021/22 tax year. If you can't show that, I'd be quite wary of applying for grant 5.

I don’t think any PAYE earnings count as any turnover. It’s only money from self employment earnings 

ChippieSteve

sam8787 said:

ChippieSteve said:

If you received official notification of mandatory shielding in place, then you'll be fine, just keep the letters as proof. Bear in mind though that if you took a PAYE job in July 2020, that is going to count towards your turnover and that could push you over the cliff for the full 80% grant. Also be aware that if your PAYE employment started during a period of mandatory shielding, HMRC might take a dim view and stop any payment or, worst case scenario, pay out then ask for it back next year.

It would also be wise to make sure that you can show you have resumed trading, or made reasonable efforts to resume, in the 2021/22 tax year. If you can't show that, I'd be quite wary of applying for grant 5.

I don’t think any PAYE earnings count as any turnover. It’s only money from self employment earnings 

The Self Assessmenrt form explicitly asks for, and includes in its calculation, income from other sources including PAYE, and you could very well be correct and I'll tell you now i'm no accountant (and even they are confused), but the guidance for SEISS 5 is a vague word salad, and I think it's wise to CYA whilst also not being afraid of getting your application in. Full disclosure is always the best policy when dealing with HMRC. They have the eye of sauron.

As long as your claim isn't dishonest, and you have supporting evidence, then you should be fine.

Personally I didn't think I'd be eligible for grant 5 and wasn't going to bother, but after being pinged off two contracts since late June, I decided that it was not unreasonable to apply as I have reasonable cause to believe that this situation is still ongoing and still affecting my business.

soolin

ChippieSteve said:

Gsam8787 said:

ChippieSteve said:

If you received official notification of mandatory shielding in place, then you'll be fine, just keep the letters as proof. Bear in mind though that if you took a PAYE job in July 2020, that is going to count towards your turnover and that could push you over the cliff for the full 80% grant. Also be aware that if your PAYE employment started during a period of mandatory shielding, HMRC might take a dim view and stop any payment or, worst case scenario, pay out then ask for it back next year.

It would also be wise to make sure that you can show you have resumed trading, or made reasonable efforts to resume, in the 2021/22 tax year. If you can't show that, I'd be quite wary of applying for grant 5.

I don’t think any PAYE earnings count as any turnover. It’s only money from self employment earnings 

The Self Assessmenrt form explicitly asks for, and includes in its calculation, income from other sources including PAYE, and you could very well be correct and I'll tell you now i'm no accountant (and even they are confused), but the guidance for SEISS 5 is a vague word salad, and I think it's wise to CYA whilst also not being afraid of getting your application in. Full disclosure is always the best policy when dealing with HMRC. They have the eye of sauron.

As long as your claim isn't dishonest, and you have supporting evidence, then you should be fine.

Personally I didn't think I'd be eligible for grant 5 and wasn't going to bother, but after being pinged off two contracts since late June, I decided that it was not unreasonable to apply as I have reasonable cause to believe that this situation is still ongoing and still affecting my business.

Self employed turnover definitely does not include work under PAYE. 

ChippieSteve

Dammit so I could have taken that job as CEO of Netflix after all.

ChippieSteve

I honestly think the whole SEISS situation shows how little governments value or indeed even understand the millions of self employed people in the UK, particularly sole traders and very small businesses, despite us accounting for a significant part of the gross economy. That's not a political statement, it's based upon 39 years of first hand observation.