After a couple of conversations in the Woodville Community What’s App Group we’ve put together a collection of information for this week.
The schedule is:
Today – Self-employed grant & universal credits
Wednesday – Furloughing as a director
Thursday – Furlough for employees
Friday – Rates cash grant / CBILS / Summary of help
Self-employed grant
Here the government are helping the self-employed and partners in a partnership.
What is it?
The scheme will allow you to claim a grant worth up to 80% of your trading profits and up to £2,500 / month for 3 months. The government may extend the scheme if it’s needed.
Who can claim it?
Anyone who is self-employed or a member of a partnership & you:
- Have submitted your 2018-19 tax return
- Traded in 2019-20
- Are trading when you apply, or would be other than COVID-19
- Intend to trade in the current tax year (2020-21)
- Have lost trading /partnership trading profits due to COVID-19
Your self-employed trading profits must also be less than £50,000 and account for more than half of your income.
You must have at least one of the following being true –
- Having trading profits in 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these being more than 50% of your total taxable income.
- Having average trading profits from 2016-17 to 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these being more than 50% of your average taxable income in the same period.
If you started trading between 2016-19, HMRC will only use the years in which you filed tax returns.
Your 2018-19 return must be submitted by 23 April 2020!
If you know anyone who needs any help, let us know.
How much will you get?
For the tax years you worked, add up the taxable profits and divide by the number of months (12, 24 or 36). Multiply by 80% of the figure. If it’s less than £2,500, that’s what you’ll receive, direct to your bank in one instalment for the 3 months.
e.g.
Profits of £15,000 (2017), £20,000 (2018) & £25,000 (2019).
Add together = £60,000;
then divide by 36 (3 years) = £1,666.67;
and multiply by 80% = £1,333.34 (if more than £2,500, use £2,500)
Then multiply by 3 months = £4,000.02 into your bank account
How do you get it?
HMRC will contact you if you’re eligible – watch out for scam messages. We’ll let you know when we hear information is going out.
A form will need to be filled in to make the claim. They will then send you a message once it’s approved to request bank details before they pay you the grant.
If you’re claiming universal credit, you’ll need to let them know the amount as it’s taxable income.
Can you help?
Yes of course, that’s what we’re here for!
If you send us your latest tax return information for the tax year just finished by 8th May 2020, there won’t be a charge for the work. Although our fees will need to be up to date, or for you to be in a formal payment plan with us. If this isn’t the case, let me know and we can arrange one.
Universal Credits
Up until recently, I’ve not spent too much time looking at universal credits. However, I have now, and I think they could be beneficial in some cases. So they’re worth looking at.
There is a great website here called Entitledto. One of our customers used to work for them, and one of the founders is friends with Martin Lewis. It’s a website all about the different benefits you can claim, along with explanations of what each of them is.
You can run the benefit entitlement calculator here, and I would recommend everyone does it. You never know what you may be entitled to. Make sure you let them know about the self-employed grant you will be claiming.
You’ll need to report your earnings monthly, so it seems that when you get back trading again you’ll probably go over the threshold and the claim will stop.
It could help you get through the next few months, so please take a look. The government have recently relaxed the rules around claiming them and removed what’s called The Minimum Income Floor, which is aimed at helping the self-employed in this period.
Thanks for reading. Please let me know any questions you have or if you want further clarification on something.