This is the third grant in the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme. If you are looking for information on the previous grants you can read about them here.
The third grant offers 80% of three months’ average trading profits, paid out in a single taxable instalment capped at £7,500. The grant will be available for a period from 1 November 2020 to 29 January 2021. Self-employed people who are eligible and in need of support will be able to claim the third grant at any time from 30 November 2020 to 29 January 2021.
It is worth noting that, as with SEISS 1 and 2, we cannot claim this grant on your behalf; you must do so yourself. If we were to try to make a claim for you it would trigger a fraud alert and delay the payment. Applying online is quick and easy. Similar to the process for SEISS 1 and 2, it takes just 5 minutes to complete!
There are a number of conditions you must meet in order to claim for the third grant. You must make an honest assessment about whether you reasonably believe your trading profits will be significantly reduced due to coronavirus.
As previously, the third grant will also be subject to Income Tax and self-employed National Insurance and must also be reported on 2020 to 2021 Self Assessment tax returns.
To make a claim for the third grant, you must:
– be a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership. You cannot claim the grant if you trade through a limited company or a trust
– have traded in both the tax years 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020.
For the third SEISS grant you must also:
– either be currently trading but are impacted by reduced activity, capacity or demand, or have been previously trading but are temporarily unable to do so due to coronavirus
– declare that you intend to continue to trade and that you reasonably believe that the impact on your business will cause a significant reduction in your trading profits
– only claim if the reduction in profits is caused by reduced business activity, capacity or demand, or inability to trade due to coronavirus – reduction in profits due to increased costs (such as having to buy masks) does not count for this purpose.
If you need additional help checking your eligibility, there is additional guidance on the government website.
When deciding whether the reduction is significant, you will need to consider your wider business circumstances.
The business must have been impacted on or after 1 November 2020. You must keep evidence to show the impact and reduction in your business activity across the qualifying period.
For more information and examples to help you check eligibility to claim, go to GOV.UK and search for ‘Self Employment Income Support Scheme’.
HMRC are contacting all self-employed people in the UK that may be eligible to let them know about the third grant. They will also be making a fourth grant available, covering the three-month period from February 2021 to April 2021. We’ll update you on the next grant closer to the time when we receive the information.
In the meantime, we are here to clear up any questions you might have. Please reach out to us if you have any questions about the scheme, or any other coronavirus support.