The 5th Self Employment Grant claim will be available to be claimed from the end of July onwards. The grant is similar to the previous ones in that you must still be self employed and you should be impacted by coronavirus between 1 May 2021 and 30 September 2021.
Where this grant differs to the previous ones is that there is now a turnover test to decide how much grant you can claim. If you meet the criteria to claim, you need to add up your self employed turnover (income) for the year ended 31 March 2021 or 5 April 2021. It’s not your profit that is taken into account, it’s your turnover. It also does not matter if your accounting year end is to a different date (ie, 31 December), HMRC are looking at the year ended 31 March 2021 or 5 April 2021. If your turnover is down by 30% or more of the turnover figure declared on your Tax Return for the year ended 5 April 2020, you can claim the full 80% grant. If your turnover is down by less than 30% of the figure declared on your Tax Return for the year ended 5 April 2020, you can claim a 30% grant. Remember though that you have to be eligible to claim in the first place.
So the first step will be to add up your self employment turnover for the year ended 31 March 2021 or 5 April 2021. If you are unsure whether this is 30% less than the figure declared on your Tax Return for the year ended 5 April 2020, please contact Andy Hagues at andy@williscooper.com
More details regarding the 5th Self Employment grant should be released shortly by HMRC and you have until 30 September 2021 to claim the grant. The link below to HMRC’s guidance gives more details.
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Andy.
Please also forward your self employment records for your usual accounting year end date as early as possible for us to review your position.
