COVID 19 – Business Support

Over recent weeks the UK government have announced unprecedented support for business and workers in light of the economic uncertainty caused by the coronavirus. The support covers many different areas and we have highlighted the main areas below.

Given the nature of the announcements, we have provided links for you to access the information directly from government sources, should these provisions change over the coming days:

All self-assessment taxpayers

• Deferral of self-assessment payment

The self-assessment payment on account that is ordinarily due to be paid to HMRC by 31 July 2020, may now be deferred until January 2021.

After some initial confusion HMRC have now confirmed that the deferral will be relevant for all self-assessment taxpayers.

This is an automatic offer with no application required. No penalties or interest for late payment will be charged if you defer payment of your July 2020 payment on account until January 2021.

Some taxpayers may prefer to make the July payment to avoid a larger payment in January 2021.

For further information click here.

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Employers

• Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

The scheme is available for all UK employers with a PAYE scheme and will support those businesses to continue to pay part of their employees’ salary for those who would otherwise have been laid off during this period of uncertainty, known as ‘furloughed employees’.

It has been confirmed that organisations, including GP practices, who are receiving public funding specifically to provide services necessary to respond to COVID-19 are not expected to furlough staff.

However, if you have any staff who have received a letter advising them to self-isolate for twelve weeks due to being high risk, these staff can be furloughed.

For further information click here.


Self-employed

This scheme will provide grants to self-employed individuals or partnerships negatively impacted by COVID-19. The scheme will provide a taxable grant to self-employed individuals or partners, worth 80% of the profits up to a cap of £2,500 per month.

HMRC will contact you if you are eligible for the scheme and invite you to apply online.
You will only be able to apply if you are 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 COVID-19
• intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020-21
• have lost trading/partnership trading profits due to COVID-19

Your self-employed trading profits must also be less than £50,000 and more than half of your income come from self-employment. This is determined by at least one of the following conditions being true:

• having trading profits/partnership trading profits in 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these profits constitute more than half of your total taxable income
• having average trading profits in 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these profits constitute more than half of your average taxable income in the same period

If you started trading between 2016-19, HMRC will only use those years for which you filed a self-assessment tax return.

If you have not submitted your self-assessment tax return for the tax year 2018-19, you must do this by 23 April 2020.

HMRC will use data on 2018-19 returns already submitted to identify those eligible and will risk assess any late returns filed before the 23 April 2020 deadline in the usual way.

How much will be received?

You will get a taxable grant which will be 80% of the average profits from the tax years (where applicable):

• 2016 to 2017
• 2017 to 2018
• 2018 to 2019

To work out the average HMRC will add together the total trading profit for the 3 tax years (where applicable) then divide by 3 (where applicable), and use this to calculate a monthly amount.

For further information click here.


Small businesses

Small Business Grant Funding for small businesses in England that already pay little or no business rates because of small business rate relief, rural rate relief and tapered relief.

For further information click here.


Small and medium businesses

• Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme which will help businesses affected to access bank lending and overdrafts if they need to. For loans up to £5 million, the Government is providing a guarantee for each loan.

For further information click here.

• Statutory Sick Pay Rebate to allow small and medium-sized businesses to reclaim Statutory Sick Pay paid for staff absence due to coronavirus.

For further information click here.

All businesses

• VAT Deferral for 3 months for businesses.

For further information click here.

• Time to Pay

All businesses and self-employed people in financial distress, and with outstanding tax liabilities, may be eligible to receive support with their tax affairs through HMRC’s Time to Pay Service.

For further information click here.