Rishi Sunak has announced that the furlough scheme, where employees who are not working, will have 80% of their wages subsidised by the government, will now be in place from the 1st of November to the 31st of March 2021.

Since the 1st of August, we have also seen the introduction of flexible furlough, where employees are working some of their contracted hours but not all, so they are still receiving a regular wage (at 80%).

The third self employment grant will be available to apply for from the 30th of November 2020. It will be the same amount as you received with the first grant which covered adversely trading in March 2020 to May 2020. You must be trading adversely to claim these grants. If you usually conduct classes in person and are now moving these classes to an online platform such as Zoom, but your prices remain the same, that does not make you adversely affected. In some instances this move will result in higher profit because you are not paying for hall hire.

HMRC is currently in the process of updating their guidance as to what ‘adversely affected’ examples they are using for the third grant, which we are expecting will be available before the 30th of November claim window is open. One of the changes proposed was having to declare you have been impacted by reduced demand due to Covid-19. Please ensure you can evidence how your business has been hit by reduced demand before you claim for this grant.

Unfortunately yet again the Chancellor has forgotten about clients who are newly self employed or do not meet the eligibility criteria for furlough or flexi furlough. If you are having to shut your business premises and can not work from home, then you should be eligible for The Local Restrictions Support Grant. These are administered by your council so please reach out but the grants are up to £1,500 and cover a three week period of closure. For more information see the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-if-youre-eligible-for-the-coronavirus-local-restrictions-support-grant

Both the grants and the SEISS grants are taxable income and are effectively treated like a sale in your business so please ensure you put aside the tax payable on the grants to be paid for the 31st of January 2022 self assessment deadline.

Amongst lockdown and these measures, it’s important to remember that they have currently not extended the 2019.20 tax year self assessment deadline. If you have tax to pay for the 31st of January 2021, I would encourage you to get your tax return completed and into HMRC as soon as you can. The Time to Pay option for your tax bill should be available for you to apply for in January 2021.