Self-employed & Coronavirus

[hilts]

I totally get your and the whole 15% self employed point of view (and totally agree that you should be compensated as well) but they have got to find the cash from somewhere and feel that is probably too much of a risk to cover all.

Bloody hell

 

[twosips]

Think they could have taken the last years earnings or even the last few months earnings and made a rough guess about what 80% would roughly look like and paid them that.

Apparently 5 million people are classed as self-employed which is a good chunk of the working population, so a lot of people are affected by this.

They seem to have reacted to any public outcry in the last few days, so hopefully they will see sense with this one as well.

I've been self-employed as of a few months ago... I have no previous year earnings. There will be plenty of new self-employed people too. I think, and hope, they'll put up the SSP or Universal Credit an awful lot for a while.

 

[kaz7]

Support for businesses through deferring VAT and Income Tax payments
We will support businesses by deferring Valued Added Tax (VAT) payments for 3 months. If you’re self-employed, Income Tax payments due in July 2020 under the Self-Assessment system will be deferred to January 2021.

VAT
For VAT, the deferral will apply from 20 March 2020 until 30 June 2020.

Eligibility
All UK businesses are eligible.

How to access the scheme
This is an automatic offer with no applications required. Businesses will not need to make a VAT payment during this period. Taxpayers will be given until the end of the 2020 to 2021 tax year to pay any liabilities that have accumulated during the deferral period. VAT refunds and reclaims will be paid by the government as normal.

Income Tax
For Income Tax Self-Assessment, payments due on the 31 July 2020 will be deferred until the 31 January 2021.

Eligibility
If you are self-employed you are eligible.

How to access the scheme
This is an automatic offer with no applications required.

No penalties or interest for late payment will be charged in the deferral period.

HMRC have also scaled up their Time to Pay offer to all firms and individuals who are in temporary financial distress as a result of Covid-19 and have outstanding tax liabilities

And you get universal credit as well i think

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

I'm sure something will be sorted, getting out a measure on Friday before the weekend through something like PAYE was always going to be a simpler step and one that would boost the majority of the country at the right moment, it doesn't mean others are being left out, it is understandably more complicated for other groups and measures have to be well thought out and implemented effectively.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

As a tory hater I'm actually pretty surprised/impressed with the speed of the govt action to support employees. I suspect there may be action to come for self-employed based upon last years earnings/tax return, but employees are where the immediate crisis is because the govt needed to put this support in place in time to reassure companies before the next pay run and before redundancy notices started popping through the letter box.

 

[Ric]

Support for businesses through deferring VAT and Income Tax payments
We will support businesses by deferring Valued Added Tax (VAT) payments for 3 months. If you’re self-employed, Income Tax payments due in July 2020 under the Self-Assessment system will be deferred to January 2021.

VAT
For VAT, the deferral will apply from 20 March 2020 until 30 June 2020.

Eligibility
All UK businesses are eligible.

How to access the scheme
This is an automatic offer with no applications required. Businesses will not need to make a VAT payment during this period. Taxpayers will be given until the end of the 2020 to 2021 tax year to pay any liabilities that have accumulated during the deferral period. VAT refunds and reclaims will be paid by the government as normal.

Income Tax
For Income Tax Self-Assessment, payments due on the 31 July 2020 will be deferred until the 31 January 2021.

Eligibility
If you are self-employed you are eligible.

How to access the scheme
This is an automatic offer with no applications required.

No penalties or interest for late payment will be charged in the deferral period.

HMRC have also scaled up their Time to Pay offer to all firms and individuals who are in temporary financial distress as a result of Covid-19 and have outstanding tax liabilities

This does help to a small extent, but doesn’t really scratch the surface. Most self-employed/freelancers are suddenly expected to live on £94 a week. That doesn’t even cover the cost of rent for many.

 

[kaz7]

This does help to a small extent, but doesn’t really scratch the surface. Most self-employed/freelancers are suddenly expected to live on £94 a week. That doesn’t even cover the cost of rent for many.

Have you looked into the mortage and rent holiday as well?
They were keen to insist more would be coming down the line so hopefully there wil be something else talked about next week,i don't know how i would have fared if i still had my business,working for yourself is great till something like this happens

 

[Ric]

Have you looked into the mortage and rent holiday as well?
They were keen to insist more would be coming down the line so hopefully there wil be something else talked about next week,i don't know how i would have fared if i still had my business,working for yourself is great till something like this happens

The mortgage holiday will help many, but don’t think there is much relief for renters, who are amongst the most vulnerable in society. Hopefully further relief for the self-employed and/or renters will be announced in the coming days. Unsurprising many feel anxious right now though.

 

[RayCTID]

Bloody hell

Yep.

 

[GBrannan]

Can’t do the maths, obviously, but presumably they could’ve found a way to cover all workers, not prioritise some over others.

I’d expect/ hope it’s firstly about what they can quickly quantify, given how on the hop they are with this.

Self-employed is seemingly much trickier. You’d have a bunch of people that set up this year and have legitimately been doing work but don’t yet have a tax profile... that would be on top of those that have been doing it for years and do have a tax record.

Distinguishing both of those categories from those that will undoubtedly try it on to get free money in the increasingly shades of grey areas of self employed... and thus stopping the bogus claims is harder said than done compared to PAYE.

Given how far the government are already ‘all in’ it’s hard to see how they won’t support freelancers it’s just that it’s seemingly a much trickier situation to grasp than current PAYE.

Its obviously awful for those that are legitimately freelance to be marooned, but I feel that all this support will likely/ eventually arrive with all the bells and whistles that government schemes usually bring, which will mean it’ll be (deliberately) beyond many businesses to actually comply with the bureaucracy.

I know many freelancers (from the creative industries), and like other sectors, people in prominent positions just don’t get them/ it.

I’m sure the government will come around, I just hope it’s not too late because those folk, in all sectors, do deserve the same safety net because the contribution is huge to our society in many forms, economically, practically, culturally and beyond.