Government reveals support for self-employed
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has outlined the much-anticipated support to be given to the self-employed, including homeworkers.
They will receive 80% of their average monthly profit, up to a maximum of £2,500 a month. Payments will be based on their last three years’ tax returns and they will last for three months, putting the self-employed on the same footing as employees.
Sunak said the scheme would cover 95% of the estimated five million self-employed people. He said the remaining 5% not covered by the scheme earn an average of £200,000 a year.
"We think that what we have done is reasonable, proportionate and fair," said Sunak.
The support for the self-employed will be up and running by the beginning of June, possibly earlier, said Sunak, with payments back-dated to March. Self-employed people don’t need to contact HMRC, they will be sent forms to fill in to show their current trading and earnings, he said, and lump sum payments will be made directly to their bank accounts.
"This is operationally complicated," he added, saying that new systems needed to be put in place. He also said the government was giving those who failed to meet the January 31 deadline for filing last year’s tax return an extra four weeks from today to do so.
For the self-employed with fewer than three years’ accounts, payments will be based on their average earnings over the past two years or solely on their 2018/2019 tax return. However, for the recently self-employed who have yet to file a tax return, the Chancellor said ‘there is nothing we can do’.
"Most people accept we have to use a database of the people we know about," said Sunak. "For those who are very recently self-employed, we can’t operate a scheme like this," adding that it would be ‘open to fraud’.
The support package puts the self-employed who qualify on the same footing as employees, who will receive government grants of up to 80% of their earnings, up to £2,500 a month, if they are furloughed during the crisis. However, cruciallly, the self-employed will still qualify for the support package even if they carry on working.
Alongside the good news for the self-employed, Sunak warned that there could be tax rises for them on the horizon, saying it would be ‘harder to sustain the argument’ that employees should pay higher tax than the self-employed now that they were being treated the same ‘at a very very significant cost’.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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