The Self Employment Support Scheme Details so Far

The much-anticipated support for self-employed individuals has now been outlined by the government. Here is what we know so far about the Self-employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS):

SEISS will support self-employed individuals whose income has been negatively impacted by COVID-19.

The scheme will provide a grant to self-employed individuals or partnerships, worth 80% of their profits up to a cap of £2,500 per month.

HMRC will use the average profits from tax returns in 2016-17, 2017-18 (if applicable) and 2018-19 (mandatory) to calculate the size of the grant.

The scheme will be open to those where the majority of their income comes from self-employment and who have profits of less than £50,000.

The scheme will be open for an initial three months with people able to make their first claim by the beginning of June.

Am I eligible?

To be eligible for the scheme you must meet ALL of the criteria below:

• Be self-employed or a member of a partnership
• Have lost trading/partnership trading profits due to COVID-19
• File a tax return for 2018-19 as self-employed or a member of a trading partnership. Those who have not yet filed for 2018-19 will have an additional 4 weeks from this announcement to do so
• Have traded in 2019-20; be currently trading at the point of application (or would be except for COVID 19) and intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020 to 2021
• Have trading profits of less than £50,000 and more than half of your total income come from self-employment

We expect further details in the coming days so please follow our social media accounts for the latest government announcements.