Never miss the deadline for filing your tax return
22 April 2020
Self-employed individuals who are yet to file their self-assessment tax return for tax year 2018-19 need to do so by 23 April 2020 in order to qualify for the Self-employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS).
The government announced the SEISS on 26 March 2020, which will provide grants to self-employed individuals who have lost profits as a result of the outbreak of coronavirus. The deadline for self-assessment tax returns under normal circumstances would have been 31 January 2020 for those submitting online, but it was extended due to COVID-19 in order to provide financial support for a wider pool of people.
Individuals can claim if they are self-employed or a member of a partnership, and they:
- Have submitted their self-assessment tax return for the tax year 2018 to 2019 (by 23 April 2020)
- Traded in the tax year 2019 to 2020
- Are trading when they apply, or would be if it weren’t for coronavirus
- Intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020 to 2021
- Have lost trading profits due to coronavirus
Anybody making a claim through the scheme will need to confirm with HMRC that their business has been negatively impacted by coronavirus. HMRC will apply a risk-based approach to compliance.
Trading profits must not exceed £500,00 and must be more than half of an individual’s total income for either tax year 2018-19, or the average of tax years 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19.
Find more information about the Self-employed Income Support Scheme here.
The information in this article is accurate at the time of publication. For all the latest information, news and resources on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting payroll professions, visit our Coronavirus hub.