The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme is designed to pay you a grant to cover 3 months of earnings if you’re self-employed.

The online claim form is due to go live from Wednesday 13 May, so what do you need to do?

Step 1 – Check You Are Eligible

Even if you already know you are eligible, you do need to do this to find out when you can claim. Although the form goes live on 13 May, the Government is staggering the claims between 13 and 18 May to cope with the demand. Therefore, you do need to know your date. 

There is a handy Government video to show you how to check eligibility here

If you don’t want to watch the video, in summary:

1. You need two pieces of information:
   1. your National Insurance number number
   2. your Unique Taxpayer Reference
2. Go to the eligibility checker here

Once confirmed you are eligible, you will be given a date to make your claim.

Step 2 – Make The Claim

The guidance from the Goverment on making the claim is as follows:

When you make your claim

You’ll only need your:

• Self Assessment UTR – if you do not have this find out how to get your lost UTR
• National Insurance number – if you do not have this find out how to get your lost National Insurance number
• Government Gateway user ID and password – if you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you check your eligibility online
• bank account number and sort code you want us to pay the grant into (only provide bank account details where a Bacs payment can be accepted)

You’ll have to confirm to HMRC that your business has been adversely affected by coronavirus.

If you claim the grant HMRC will treat this as confirmation you’re below the state aid limits.

HMRC will check claims and take appropriate action to withhold or recover payments found to be dishonest or inaccurate.After you’ve claimed

Once you’ve submitted your claim, you will be told straight away if your grant is approved. We will pay the grant into your bank account within 6 working days.

You must keep a copy of all records in line with normal self-employment record keeping requirements, including:

• the amount claimed
• the claim reference number for your records
• evidence that your business has been adversely affected by coronavirus

You will need to report the grant:

• on your Self Assessment tax return
• as self-employed income for any Universal Credit claims
• as self-employed income and that you’re working 16 hours a week for any tax credits claims

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If you’d like a meeting or a Skype call to discuss this, please get in touch with your favourite Liverpool accountant

• You can ring us on 0151 380 8080
• You can email us at growth@jondaviesaccountants.co.uk