Last day to file tax return to claim up to £7,500 self-employed coronavirus grant
ANYONE who is self-employed and wants to access the government’s coronavirus grant has just over 24 hours left to file their tax return in order to be able to qualify.
The new Self-employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) means that self-employed workers can apply for grants to offset any loss of income brought about by the pandemic.
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The grants are worth 80 per cent of profits for the year, up to a maximum of £2,500 a month.
However, to qualify for the grant you must be able to produce your filed tax return for 2018/19.
Usually the deadline for filing your tax return is in January 31, but the government agreed to extend the deadline to help more people access the grant.
As a result, the deadline for filing is tomorrow, Thursday April 23.
If you do it before midnight on Thursday then you can still access the scheme.
Because the grant is calculated from the previous tax you, you must have been self-employed before April 6 2019 to qualify.
But even if you only had a few months of self-employment in that tax year, you can still claim - although your grant will be calculated from the profit you earned on that work only.
As well as filing your tax return for the 2018/19 financial year, you must also earn more than half of your total income from self-employment, and your average profit must be less than £50,000 a year.
The government will initially use your 2018/19 tax return to check this.
If you earned more than £50,000 in 2018/19 but less than £50,000 on average over the last three years, you will still qualify.
Self-employment grant: who can claim?
You can claim if you’re a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership and you:
- have submitted your self assessment tax return for the tax year 2018/19
- traded in the tax year 2019/20
- are trading when you apply, or would be except for coronavirus
- intend to continue to trade in the current tax year (2020/21)
- have lost trading profits due to coronavirus
If you have already done your 2018/19 tax return you don't need to apply for the grant – the government says it will contact you by mid-May.
Once it contacts you, you will be able to claim the money online.
The scheme is expected to make its first payments in June, and they will probably be backdated to cover March, April and May - meaning you could bag up to £7,500 in total.
Unlike the government’s furlough scheme, you can keep working even if you qualify for the grant.
You do still have to pay tax on whatever money you get from the government - but because it is a grant you don’t need to pay it back.
More on Money
Last week it was revealed that more than 700,000 self-employed people will miss out on government help due to their limited company status.
There are winners and losers among those who are self-employed and need financial help.
Here is how to claim Universal Credit if you are self-employed while you wait for the grant pay-outs.