Jury service self employed

lady_lurkalot

My daughter is currently on day 3 of jury service. She is a self employed beautician who only recently set up her business and was badly hit by the covid lockdown, being unable to work for months. She's been informed that to claim loss of earnings, she needs to provide a tax return from last year, but this shows that she hardly earned anything! Will they reject her claim because of this? She's just beginning to build her business up again, but hasn't been able to take any bookings for 2 weeks due to this jury service.

TBagpuss

She will need to speak to the Jury Officer/manager. The form is here, as you can see it does refer to people who are newly self-employed having to speak to the jury officer.

My guess is that she would need to provide other evidence, perhaps her books showing the average amount she was earning in the previous few weeks, and maybe evidence of any cancelled bookings and enquiries she had to reject. 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/689221/certificate-of-loss-of-earnings-for-self-employed-or-company-directors-eng.pdf   

lady_lurkalot

She has spoken to the jury officer about this who suggested she gets a letter from an accountant with projected earnings? But this is going to cost her £150 so is not a viable option 

TBagpuss

Then she needs to speak to them again and explain that, and see what else they will accept. I would suggest that go into that conversation with details of what she can provide - e.g. copies of her records showing her average income, her cash-flow projections, a letter if her own setting out her projected earning and how she has calculated these.

macman

lady_lurkalot said:

She has spoken to the jury officer about this who suggested she gets a letter from an accountant with projected earnings? But this is going to cost her £150 so is not a viable option 

If her accountant wants to charge £150 for that, then she needs to get a new accountant! I needed a similar letter a few years back and he made no charge for it at all. 5 mins work, as part of the annual assessment work.

TBagpuss

macman said:

lady_lurkalot said:

She has spoken to the jury officer about this who suggested she gets a letter from an accountant with projected earnings? But this is going to cost her £150 so is not a viable option 

If her accountant wants to charge £150 for that, then she needs to get a new accountant! I needed a similar letter a few years back and he made no charge for it at all. 5 mins work, as part of the annual assessment work.

Maybe she doesn't currently have an accountant and they have quoted this as a free-standing piece of work, which would be more reasonable, as they would presumably have to open a file, do all their new client checks and review her books to be able to to provide the letter.