The Self-employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) was announced today. 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, where income has been negatively impacted by COVID-19.
The scheme will be open for an initial three months. It is anticipated that people can make their first claim by the beginning of June.
To be eligible for the scheme you must meet all the criteria below:
Be self-employed or a member of 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. This can be with reference to at least one of the following conditions:
Your trading profits and total income in 2018/19, or
Your average trading profits and total income across up to the three years between 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19.