2) Self-Employment Income Support now LIVE (Wed) - three key tips, incl if you're turned down. From today, those eligible for the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) can apply to get 80% of average profits up to £2,500/mth to cover March to May's income. For full info, including who's eligible and how the amounts are decided, see our
Self-Employed Coronavirus Help, but the key info to know right now is...
- All invites to apply have been sent, but not necessarily received: Letters, texts or emails have been sent to eligible people with dates to apply between 13 and 18 May (though miss the date and you can still do it later). They mightn't have arrived though, especially the letters, or if you've not updated your contact details. If not, and you think you should have got one, use the
Govt's SEISS eligibility checker to see if you're eligible, and get your appointment time.
- Govt eligibility checker says you're ineligible? Check details & try again: First check all details especially your UTR code and national insurance number - if they're put in wrong, it'll go wrong. Even if they're right, try again, as if you tried early last week, some people's files weren't uploaded and so they were incorrectly told 'no'. If that doesn't work, and you filed your 2018/19 tax return very late, try again this evening (WED), as the final data upload was due last night (Tue), but give it a bit of time to be safe.
- Feel wrongly rejected? In most cases you're not eligible: Many people are sadly being surprised by ineligibility. The two big reasons are: 1) self-employment isn't 50%+ of earnings, as you've not counted all other earnings from pensions, savings, employment and property etc, 2) you stopped self-employment or changed for a period. So the first thing to do if you're ineligible is to go through the
SEISS eligibility info in detail to check.
- Still feel wrongly rejected? You can review: If you're still convinced you're eligible, you can ask for the decision to be reviewed online or by phone - though things are only likely to change in a smattering of cases. If you're still unhappy after that, you can escalate it all the way up to an HMRC adjudicator. Full details in
how to challenge an incorrect SEISS decision .