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SEISS FOUR: Thousands of struggling self-employed workers will be contacted by HMRC in ‘MID-APRIL’
Updated: Apr 11, 2021
Thousands of struggling self-employed workers will be contacted by HMRC in MID-APRIL when they will be handed a date they can make their next support application from.
Eligible workers waiting for the next crucial Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) grant will be contacted in mid-April by HMRC to provide them with a date that they can make their claim from. The date will be provided either by email, letter or within the online service.
According to sources, the online service to claim the fourth SEISS grant will be available from late April 2021.
Once the self-employed worker, which includes thousands of taxi drivers, receives a date to claim, they will need to confirm they also meet other eligibility criteria when making the claim. Workers must make their claim on or before 1 June 2021.
To be eligible for the fourth grant, workers must be a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership. They cannot claim the grant if they trade through a limited company or a trust.
All eligible claimants must have traded in both tax years:
2019 to 2020 and submitted your tax return on or before 2 March 2021
2020 to 2021.
Workers must also be either currently trading, but remain impacted by reduced demand due to coronavirus, or have been trading, but are temporarily unable to do so due to coronavirus.
To be eligible for the fourth grant they must also declare that they intend to continue to trade and reasonably believe there will be a significant reduction in their trading profits.
The fourth grant is calculated much like previous SEISS grants at 80% of 3 months’ average trading profits. It will be paid out in a single instalment and capped at £7,500 in total. How much a worker receives will depend on their average trading profits.
HMRC will work out your average trading profits using up to 4 years’ of submitted tax returns. This may affect the amount claimants get which could be higher or lower than previous grants.
HMRC will take into account trading profits from the 2016 to 2017, 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020 tax years. For those with a gap in the years they have traded, HMRC will only use the most recent returns after the gap to work out the grant.
Trading profits must be no more than £50,000 and at least equal to or more than the non-trading income.
HMRC have also stated that in order to claim the fourth grant, workers must reasonably believe that they will suffer a significant reduction in trading profits, due to reduced business activity, capacity, demand or inability to trade due to coronavirus between 1 February 2021 and 30 April 2021. HMRC will ask claimants to keep evidence that shows how the business has been impacted by coronavirus resulting in less business activity than otherwise expected.
HMRC says they expect claimants ‘to make an honest assessment about whether you reasonably believe your business will have a significant reduction in profits’.
There are some circumstances that can affect eligibility such as if a worker returned their tax return late for instance. Find out more information on how circumstances might affect eligibility.
