Third self-employed grant scheme now open
The taxable grant is worth 80% of average monthly trading profits, paid in one instalment covering three months’ worth of profits, capped at £7,500.
Operators must make their claim on or before 29 January 2021.
Who can claim?
The rules are if you were not eligible for the first and second grant, based on the information in your self-assessment tax returns, you will not be eligible for the third.
To make a claim for the third grant, operators must have had a new or continuing impact from coronavirus between 1 November 2020 and 29 January 2021, which you reasonably believe, will have a significant reduction in your profits.
Operators must have traded in both tax years – 2018 to 2019 and submitted self-assessment tax return on or before 23 April 2020 for that year, and 2019 to 2020.
Those applying must either be currently trading but are impacted by reduced demand due to coronavirus or have been trading and are now temporarily unable to do so because of coronavirus.
You must also declare you intent to continue to trade and reasonably believe there will be a significant reduction in trading profits.
Eligibility
HMRC will look at the 2018 to 2019 self-assessment tax return and trading profits must be no more than £50,000 and at least equal to non-trading income.
If operators are not eligible based on the 2018 to 2019 self-assessment tax return, HMRC will look at the tax years 2016 to 2017, 2017 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019.
Examples are given of how businesses could or could not be eligible.
One is a café owner having fewer customers due to Government restrictions on household mixing, which reduces takings.
There is a reasonable belief this will significantly reduce trading profits and therefore, the business owner is eligible to claim.
However, if the café owner has fewer customers due to the Government restrictions, which initially reduces takings and then the business increases prices meaning trading profits will not reduce significantly, this would mean the café owner would not be eligible to claim the third grant.
Information required
To make the claim, you will need:
- Your self-assessment unique taxpayer reference (UTR) – you can find out how to get it here
- National insurance number
- Government Gateway user ID and password
- UK bank details including account number, sort code, name on the account and address linked to the account
It should be noted for this grant, you must make the claim yourself and not ask a tax agent of adviser to claim on your behalf as this will trigger a fraud alert, which will delay payment, HMRC has advised.
Post-claim
The payment will be checked by HMRC and paid into the bank account you provided within six working days.
You must keep records in line with normal self-employment record keeping requirements including the amount claimed and grant claim reference
Click here to get started.
The Government will offer a fourth grant, covering February 2021 to April 2021 for self-employed workers and further details about this will be revealed in due course.
