Chancellor’s statement: Self-Employed Support Scheme

The chancellor has just made the following statement:

  • The government will pay self-employed people, who have been adversely affected by the coronavirus, a taxable grant worth 80% of their average monthly profits over the last 3 years, up to £2,500 per month.

    Open for at least 3 months across the UK, I will extend if necessary.

  • You’ll be able to claim these grants and continue to do business. We’re covering the same amount of income as we are for furloughed employees, who also get a grant worth 80%. That’s unlike almost any other country, making our scheme one of the most generous in the world.
  • I’ve taken steps to make the scheme deliverable, and fair. It’s only open to those with trading profits up to £50,000, who make a majority of their income from self-employment. To minimise fraud only those already in self-employment, who have a tax return for 2019 can apply.
  • 95% of people who are majority self-employed will benefit from this scheme. HMRC are working urgently, we expect people to access it no later than the beginning of June. If eligible, HMRC will contact you with an online form, they pay the grant straight to your bank account.
  • To make sure no one who needs it misses out on support, we have decided to allow anyone who missed the filing deadline in January, four weeks from today to submit their tax return.
  • I know self-employed people are struggling right now, we’ve made sure:

    – You can access the business interruption loans.
    – Income tax payments due in July can be deferred to the end of Jan 2021.
    – We’ve changed the welfare system so you can access Universal Credit in full.

No doubt the devil will be in the detail, we’ll feed back more as we know it.