Fourth Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) Grant
As promised for all our self-employed clients here is the update as the fourth Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) is due to open for claims
HMRC has confirmed that it will be contacting eligible self-employed individuals based on their tax returns in mid-April to give a date for making applications.
Communications will be sent either by email, letter or within the online service.
The online service to claim the fourth grant will be available from late April 2021.
All claims must be made on or before 1 June 2021.
Claims must be made by the individual and cannot be processed by a tax agent or adviser to claim on your behalf as this will trigger a fraud alert, which will delay payment.
To be eligible for the fourth grant you must be a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership. Grants are not available if you trade through a limited company or a trust. Trading profits must be no more than £50,000 and at least equal to or more than your non-trading income.
Capped at £7,500 the fourth grant will be set at 80% of three months’ average trading profits. There will also be a fifth grant covering May to September 2021 and will take the individual’s trading position for 2020/2021.
The fifth grant will be worth 80% of three months’ average trading profits, capped at £7,500, for those with a turnover reduction of 30% or more; or 30% of three months’ average trading profits, capped at £2,850, for those with a turnover reduction of less than 30%.
There is no requirement that an earlier SEISS grant has been claimed in order to be able to claim the upcoming fourth grant.
To make a claim, applicants will need the following:
Self-Assessment Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR);
National Insurance number;
Government Gateway user ID and password; and
UK bank details including account number, sort code, name on the account and address linked to the account.
Only provide bank account details where a Bacs payment can be accepted.
HMRC will check claims and take appropriate action to withhold or recover payments found to be dishonest or inaccurate with a penalty system in place.
In order to claim the fourth grant, you must reasonably believe that you will suffer a significant reduction in trading profits, due to reduced business activity, capacity, demand or inability to trade due to coronavirus between 1 February 2021 and 30 April 2021.
GOV.UK advises that: “You must keep evidence that shows how your business has been impacted by coronavirus resulting in less business activity than otherwise expected.”
It adds: “ HMRC expects you to make an honest assessment about whether you reasonably believe your business will have a significant reduction in profits.”
For self-employed people currently trading but have reduced demand, keep any evidence that your business has had reduced activity, capacity or demand due to coronavirus at the time you made your claim, such as business accounts showing reduction in activity compared to previous years, records of reduced or cancelled contracts or appointments, and a record of dates where you had reduced demand or capacity due to government restrictions.
Before you make a claim, you must decide if the impact on your business between this period will cause a significant reduction in your trading profits for the tax year you report them in.
We or HMRC cannot make this decision for you because your individual and wider business circumstances will need to be considered when deciding whether the reduction is significant.
I sincerely hope most of you will now be able to generate work with the recent changes to the lockdown rules however, this information will assist should there be any self-employed clients whose workload suffered between February and April 2021.