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Freelancers during this crisis and the Self Employment Income Support Scheme

How much was your total government grant?

  • £1-£99

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • £100-£199

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • £200-£299

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • £300-£499

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • £500-£799

    Votes: 3 13.0%
  • £800-£999

    Votes: 1 4.3%
  • £1,000-£2,499

    Votes: 8 34.8%
  • £2,500-£4,999

    Votes: 3 13.0%
  • £5,000-£9,999

    Votes: 7 30.4%
  • Over ten grand - reeeeesult *champagne corks pop

    Votes: 1 4.3%

  • Total voters
    23
SEISS hasn't worked out so well for me as my first year was 2017/18 but I only started trading on 27/02/2018 and made all of £14 profit. They've included this which has basically halved the amount I will receive.

Have appealed but not holding out much hope.
 
SEISS hasn't worked out so well for me as my first year was 2017/18 but I only started trading on 27/02/2018 and made all of £14 profit. They've included this which has basically halved the amount I will receive.

Have appealed but not holding out much hope.

Good luck with the appeal, hopefully when it's reviewed by a human they will see that's not fair.
 
SEISS doesn't cover my OH's situation, so no joy there.

We've applied for UC [UC moan/rant follows]. As expected, submitting our year's earnings has been a right headache, he has a mix of PAYE (from own company and from a regular job he had for 3 months), dividends & I don't know what else (probably that's it actually), but managed to submit them yesterday, hopefully accurately, his tax affairs have always been a huge headache with much confusion and conflicting advice on the part of HMRC, which even his accountant has struggled to understand. It's the Construction Industry Scheme where tax deductions are paid by the agency direct to HMRC (and later have to be taken into account/adjusted for in his other tax liabilites) which always seem to cause the headache, often leading to it being paid twice, hence regular rebates. He had a big tax rebate during the period he's submitting income deets for (presumably counts as income?), half of which they immediately asked him to repay, so how that works I'm not sure :facepalm: Mine was much simpler, just earnings for part of the year, and benefits for the other part, to declare. My income last year was the princely sum of four grand :rolleyes: The UC online system seems well designed and easy to use at first glance but then some of the questions prove impossible to answer and designed to trip you up :hmm: wouldn't be a surprise if it's deliberate tbh.

For head-hitting-repeatedly-against-wall-moments see here.
 
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And done. Similar to others it's not that high due to earlier years, but I'm working at the moment (minimum wage, lots of hours) so it's still a bonus. See I still have to pay income tax and NI contributions on it though.
 
Just claimed myself, surprisingly very easy, and only took about 10 minutes, as reported above.

Good job the middle year was a right corker, because the third year was shit, as Brexit started hitting my income, so it averaged out OK. :thumbs:

Bit surprised that it didn't ask for actual or estimated income during the 3 months, which in my case was fuck all, and adjust the grant to the amount of lost income compared to average, some people are going to do fucking well out of this.

My fear is that's all we are going to get, as there's been no announcement about extending it beyond May, which will be a fucker, as it is likely going to be bloody months before my earnings recover.
 
Just claimed myself, surprisingly very easy, and only took about 10 minutes, as reported above.

Good job the middle year was a right corker, because the third year was shit, as Brexit started hitting my income, so it averaged out OK. :thumbs:

Bit surprised that it didn't ask for actual or estimated income during the 3 months, which in my case was fuck all, and adjust the grant to the amount of lost income compared to average, some people are going to do fucking well out of this.

My fear is that's all we are going to get, as there's been no announcement about extending it beyond May, which will be a fucker, as it is likely going to be bloody months before my earnings recover.
I'm probably one of those doing quite well out of it. I lost a little less than half my income thanks to the virus, and my last year's income was down 40% on the previous one, but I got a sum that is at going to ensure I can pay rent AND eat for the next few months...
 
SEISS doesn't cover my OH's situation, so no joy there.

We've applied for UC [UC moan/rant follows]. As expected, submitting our year's earnings has been a right headache, he has a mix of PAYE (from own company and from a regular job he had for 3 months), dividends & I don't know what else (probably that's it actually), but managed to submit them yesterday, hopefully accurately, his tax affairs have always been a huge headache with much confusion and conflicting advice on the part of HMRC, which even his accountant has struggled to understand. It's the Construction Industry Scheme where tax deductions are paid by the agency direct to HMRC (and later have to be taken into account/adjusted for in his other tax liabilites) which always seem to cause the headache, often leading to it being paid twice, hence regular rebates. He had a big tax rebate during the period he's submitting income deets for (presumably counts as income?), half of which they immediately asked him to repay, so how that works I'm not sure :facepalm: Mine was much simpler, just earnings for part of the year, and benefits for the other part, to declare. My income last year was the princely sum of four grand :rolleyes: The UC online system seems well designed and easy to use at first glance but then some of the questions prove impossible to answer and designed to trip you up :hmm: wouldn't be a surprise if it's deliberate tbh.

For head-hitting-repeatedly-against-wall-moments see here.
I thought the whole point of UC was to stop people getting any money tbh, I'm glad that so far I have not had to deal with it.
 
I'm probably one of those doing quite well out of it. I lost a little less than half my income thanks to the virus, and my last year's income was down 40% on the previous one, but I got a sum that is at going to ensure I can pay rent AND eat for the next few months...

Mine would just have covered the bills, but left none for food or the intrest charges on my overdraft if I'd have not been doing care work.

I've also got a slight worry. In 2019 to 2020 I made a tiny bit more PAYE then self employment, mostly from working loads up till April trying to pay of credit cards. Its also likely to be the same this year, especially with summer basically being cancelled work wise. Im wondering if there is any danger they may ask for it back.
 
SEISS hasn't worked out so well for me as my first year was 2017/18 but I only started trading on 27/02/2018 and made all of £14 profit. They've included this which has basically halved the amount I will receive.

Have appealed but not holding out much hope.
I'm in exactly the same boat. Just appealed, but they're trying to fob me off with nearly a third of what I originally calculated at.
 
Mine would just have covered the bills, but left none for food or the intrest charges on my overdraft if I'd have not been doing care work.

I've also got a slight worry. In 2019 to 2020 I made a tiny bit more PAYE then self employment, mostly from working loads up till April trying to pay of credit cards. Its also likely to be the same this year, especially with summer basically being cancelled work wise. Im wondering if there is any danger they may ask for it back.

Most banks are waiving interest charges on overdrafts. Thank god in my case!
 
That is good. It's stuff like that which makes a bad situation worse.

Anyway my car just broke. So that will be a fair chuck of the money. :facepalm:

You might need to call them to arrange it, my bank (Lloyds) waive it but yeh I had to call. I gather all the main banks are the same.

Soz about your car. Heed Mr Shapps advice and walk. Even if you live 10 miles from work.
 
Poll posted. I've no idea how much money is slopping about but I've taken a guess and made more choices at the lower end...
 
Poll posted. I've no idea how much money is slopping about but I've taken a guess and made more choices at the lower end...

The poll isn't clear as to if you are talking about per month, or the whole 3-month period.

Plus, the maximum available was £2.5k pm, total maximum of £7.5k, so the last two options are a bit silly.

ETA - Even if you only earnt £10k pa, you should get £2.5k pay out for the 3-months, so all the first 6 options are fairly pointless TBH.

More sensible;

£0 - £2499
£2500 - £3500
etc. etc., up to the maximum £7,500.
 
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I'm in exactly the same boat. Just appealed, but they're trying to fob me off with nearly a third of what I originally calculated at.
Unfortunately for you two looks like this is going to be this way:
If you only had a few months' self-employment on your 2018/19 return, this will be counted as your total profit for the year – the Government won't pro-rata it based on your monthly profits.
from money saving expert

eta: I am now wondering if the SEISS payment will affect my UC claim for next month as this what the money saving expert says, but before I had read this I queried it via the UC journal and was told not to declare it. :confused:
 
I'm in exactly the same boat. Just appealed, but they're trying to fob me off with nearly a third of what I originally calculated at.

It would be simple enough for them to work it out on a monthly basis, especially after all the bollocks about the self employed scheme being more complicated than furlough.

I already borrowed £500 against it so only £169 left now.

Hope your appeal is successful.
 
Unfortunately for you two looks like this is going to be this way:
from money saving expert

eta: I am now wondering if the SEISS payment will affect my UC claim for next month as this what the money saving expert says, but before I had read this I queried it via the UC journal and was told not to declare it. :confused:

UC people told me it would affect this months claim. My grant will be less than I would have got from UC!
 
Just did mine. Originally they said it was your last working year, but if that took you over the 50k then they would do the last three years. Annoyingly for me they just went ahead and did the last three years (I did almost earn 50k last year, but not quite). This means my total has been brought way down by a very shite first year of those three years. Not super bad because I am still only a couple of hunderd off cap. This is going to be extremely helpful as the current cost of living for me has gone up quite a lot and I can't see myself getting any more work for the rest of the year now.
 
I am now
Just did mine. Originally they said it was your last working year, but if that took you over the 50k then they would do the last three years. Annoyingly for me they just went ahead and did the last three years (I did almost earn 50k last year, but not quite). This means my total has been brought way down by a very shite first year of those three years. Not super bad because I am still only a couple of hunderd off cap. This is going to be extremely helpful as the current cost of living for me has gone up quite a lot and I can't see myself getting any more work for the rest of the year now.
I had misread it in the same manner as you.
 
This is now week 6 without work and looking very unlikely I'll get any.

I trade through a limited company.

Just been told by my accountant I can be furloughed and claim 80% of my PAYE monthly salary so £719 @ 80% = £575.20. My out goings are a great deal larger than that. Anyone know if theres anything else i can do? Other than pray and/or get drunk?
 
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Just did mine. Originally they said it was your last working year, but if that took you over the 50k then they would do the last three years. Annoyingly for me they just went ahead and did the last three years (I did almost earn 50k last year, but not quite). This means my total has been brought way down by a very shite first year of those three years. Not super bad because I am still only a couple of hunderd off cap. This is going to be extremely helpful as the current cost of living for me has gone up quite a lot and I can't see myself getting any more work for the rest of the year now.

No, it was always the average of 3 years, assuming you had been self-employed for that period.

It's just they would look at the last year first to see if you qualified, for example if over 50% of income was self-employed, but if that appeared to disqualify you because you earnt over £50k, they would ignore that & look further back.
 
I got 500 quid, about what I'd usually make in two weeks at this time of year. Still more than I was expecting tbh. Glad I put all my cash in hand work down on my tax return back in 2016 anyway.
 
The poll isn't clear as to if you are talking about per month, or the whole 3-month period.

Plus, the maximum available was £2.5k pm, total maximum of £7.5k, so the last two options are a bit silly.

ETA - Even if you only earnt £10k pa, you should get £2.5k pay out for the 3-months, so all the first 6 options are fairly pointless TBH.

More sensible;

£0 - £2499
£2500 - £3500
etc. etc., up to the maximum £7,500.
My grant just said: here's your grant and made no mention of a timeframe so I'm referring to the whole sum. Months don't seem to matter much these days!

I've added the word total to the Q.
 
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