Struggling self-employed workers urged to apply now for fourth SEISS grant before 1 June deadline
Self-employed workers who have been financially hit by the coronavirus pandemic have been urged to apply now for support before the fourth grant application deadline ends soon.
Workers eligible for the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) have until midnight Tuesday 1 June 2021 to make their latest claim.
The fourth SEISS grant has already provided a taxable grant calculated at 80% of 3 months’ average trading profits to thousands of workers since the scheme went live. The grant is paid out in a single instalment and capped at £7,500 in total.
Applications for the crucial fourth SEISS grant opened in late April. Those eligible for the grant have been contacted directly by HMRC and provided with a personal claim date. Eligible workers are then able to submit their claims for the fourth grant from the date provided by HMRC.
To be eligible for the fourth SEISS grant, a self-employed individual must meet all of the eligibility criteria. The eligibility criteria are:
The claimant must be a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership
The claimant’s trading profits must be no more than £50,000 and at least equal to your non-trading income for the 2019 to 2020 tax year
If the claimant is not eligible based on their 2019 to 2020 Self Assessment tax return, HMRC will also look at the tax years 2016 to 2017, 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019 as well as 2019 to 2020.
The claimant must have traded in both tax years – 2019 to 2020 (and submitted your tax return by 2 March 2021), and 2020 to 2021
The claimant must either be currently trading but is impacted by reduced demand due to coronavirus, or have been trading but is temporarily unable to do so due to coronavirus
The claimant must also declare that they intend to continue to trade, and that they reasonably believe there will be a significant reduction in their trading profits due to reduced business activity, capacity, demand or inability to trade due to coronavirus.
If a claimant’s contract for services has been replaced by a contract of employment, this may affect their eligibility for the fourth and fifth SEISS grants if:
the change means they have permanently ceased trading
in the relevant tax years (2016 to 2017, 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020, their trading profits were not at least equal to their non-trading income.
HRMC have created a useful recorded webinar for workers wanting to learn more about who can apply, how much they may be entitled to, how to claim and what happens after they’ve claimed. The webinar called 'Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) – fourth grant' is still available to view on HMRC’s YouTube channel.
Support for self-employed workers, which includes thousands of taxi drivers, will end with one final fifth SEISS payment due out in the summer.
The Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the fifth and final SEISS grant will cover May to September. Eligible self-employed workers will be able to claim from late July and the amount of the fifth grant will be determined by how much the claimant's turnover has been reduced in the year April 2020 to April 2021.
The fifth grant will be worth:
80% of 3 months’ average trading profits, capped at £7,500, for those with a turnover reduction of 30% or more
30% of 3 months’ average trading profits, capped at £2,850, for those with a turnover reduction of less than 30%.
Further details will be provided on the fifth grant in due course.
