SIESS Blog-8

Nov 27

Third instalment of the self employed income support scheme (SEISS)

We have received guidance from HMRC regarding the third instalment of the self employed income support scheme (SEISS).  As before if you want to claim this grant you will need to do this yourself as we are not allowed to make this claim for you.  The process to claim similar to the previous SEISS grant claims and you can claim from 30 November 2020 (Monday) to 29 January 2021.

The third grant, which offers 80% of three months’ average trading profits, paid out in a single instalment (maximum £7,500), will be available covering the period from 1 November 2020 to 29‌ ‌January 2021. We understand HMRC will be contacting all self-employed people in the UK that may be eligible to let them know about the third grant, if you are not contacted and believe you are eligible please do contact us.

Who can claim?

The criteria has changed slightly to qualify you must:

  • Be a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership. You cannot claim the grant if you trade through a limited company or a Trust, you must have submitted a Self-Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018 to 2019 showing self-employment income.
  • Have traded in both the tax-years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020.
  • Have trading profits in 2018-2019 that are at least equal to your none trading income and are less than £50,000.
  • Be either currently trading but impacted by reduced activity, capacity or demand, or have been previously trading but are temporarily unable to do so due to coronavirus
  • Declare that you intend to continue to trade, and you reasonably believe that the impact on your business will cause a significant reduction in your trading profits.  Only claim if the reduction in profits is caused by reduced business activity, capacity or demand, or inability to trade due to coronavirus – reduction in profits due to increased costs (such as having to buy masks) does not count for this purpose.
  • The business must have been impacted on or after 1 November 2020. You must keep evidence to show the impact and reduction in your business activity across the qualifying period. When deciding whether the reduction is significant, you will need to consider the wider business circumstances.

More information 

As previously stated, the third grant will also be subject to Income Tax and self-employed National Insurance and must also be reported on 2020 to 2021 Self-Assessment tax returns. If your year-end is between 6 April – 30 October 2020 you will be paying tax on this grant earlier than if it were normal business income.

For more information and examples to help you check eligibility to claim, go to GOV‌‌.UK and search for ‘Self Employment Income Support Scheme’.

There will also be a fourth grant (covering the three-month period from February 2021 to April 20‌‌21). As yet we do not have further information for this grant.

As always, if you have any questions please do get in touch and we will do our best to help you.

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From first going self-employed to starting a limited company, the fantastic accountants at Sage have talked me through the processes and looked after all things accounts-related, leaving me with peace of mind; free to focus on the day-to-day operating of the business. Sage handles everything for me from payroll to tax returns and their service is flawless; when I need something its done; when I need info I get it. All of their staff are friendly, professional, efficient and patient and I couldn’t manage without them.

 

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