Support for business during the Coronavirus Pandemic

 Self-employed [BREAKING]

Income tax deferral – Income tax payments on account due by the 31st July 2020 have been deferred to January 2021. Again no application for this is required.  See this link Income tax deferral

The government will provide up to £2.5k of support per month covering the period March to June, 80% of average profits based on the previous 3 years. You are expected to be paid at the beginning of June

You need to have filed a 2019 return or file in the next 4 weeks

Anyone over £50k profit won’t be eligible. HMRC will contact you directly. While this will be a long time to wait for some, this is understandable. To counter this, some people will decide to borrow in the short term, knowing that they will very soon be reimbursed.

It is currently unclear as to what will happen to the self-employed who work through a limited company.

Employers

Coronavirus Job retention scheme – You may have heard about the government pledging to pay 80% of employees salaries for those employees who would otherwise have been made redundant during this difficult time. At this stage, we are not sure if this applies to owner-managers who are paid a notional salary through payroll and take the rest of their income in the form of dividends. We are also awaiting more information from the Government as to how you can claim this money back.  We will update you when more information is provided on this.  See link on Job Retention Scheme

All Businesses

VAT deferral – HMRC have deferred all VAT payments by 3 months. You don’t need to apply for this however If you pay your VAT by direct debit you should probably cancel your direct debit with your bank.  See this link VAT deferral

Time to Pay

If you have any outstanding tax liabilities then contact HMRC if you think you may miss your next tax payment due to coronavirus.

Small business

Cash grants of £10,000 will be paid to businesses receiving small business rate relief or rural rate relief.  Businesses have to occupy a property to qualify and the grant will be paid automatically by your local authority so you do not need to apply for them.

Small and medium businesses

There is the business interruption loan scheme to help with businesses affected by access to bank lending and overdrafts.  See link below:

Government backed loans

The government will now also allow businesses to reclaim Statutory sick pay where this is due to the coronavirus.  See link below:

Sick pay

Retail, Hospitality and Leisure businesses

If you are in this sector you have no rates to pay for the 2020/21 tax year.  See below for more details

Rates holiday for leisure & hospitality businesses

If you are in a retail, hospitality or leisure sector you can receive a cash grant of up to £25,000.

The details are set out below and this is automatically applied and will be dealt with by the local authority so you do not need to claim it

Cash grants for business

There are a few other things to bear in mind at this time:

• If you run a business then we recommend you review your expected cash in and cash out movements over the next few months to ensure you have enough cash to see your business through this crisis.  If you need any help creating this plan get in touch and we are able to help and can ‘meet’ via Zoom – Skype- Whatsapp or other facilities.
• If you need short term funding then look into a loan which is guaranteed 80% by the government. You can do this directly through your bank and this scheme is now open for applications. This loan is interest-free for the first 12 months and is intended to help you get through this period. Business Interruption Loan Scheme
• You can apply for a 3-month mortgage break. You need to do this directly with your mortgage lender. This applies to your own mortgage as well as we believe any buy to let mortgages you may have and will not have any impact on your credit rating.  See below: Mortgage help
• The rules for applying for Universal credit have been relaxed and so you may be able to apply for this support Universal Credit(although you may wish to await further announcements for the self-employed before you do this)
• If you have premises then you should review your business Insurance to see if you are covered if your property is left empty for a period of time.  I would suggest contacting your insurers directly to find out how your cover works in these circumstances.

We are here to help you through this very difficult time.