If you fail to submit your claim in time, it will not be processed 

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Those eligible to make a claim for the fifth SEISS grant need to:

• Apply on or after their personal start date given to them by HMRC
• Tell HMRC that they intend to carry on trading in 2021/22
• Reasonably believe there will be a significant reduction in their trading profits between 1 May and 30 September 2021 due to the pandemic.

Don’t forget the turnover test!

Following changes to the SEISS, there are two levels of grant available, which are dependent on your turnover.

This ensures that those whose turnover fell by:

• 30 per cent or more will continue to receive a grant worth 80 per cent of three months’ average trading profits (capped at £7,500).
• Less than 30 per cent will receive a reduced grant equal to 30 per cent of three months’ average trading profits (capped at £2,850).

The figures used in this calculation are not profit but rather gross sales for all concurrent trades. All COVID-related grants received should be excluded from your turnover figure.

Here to help

While we cannot complete the fifth SEISS application on your behalf, we are happy to provide advice on your turnover.

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This figure is a decrease of 11 per cent since July, even though the furlough scheme is due to end on 30 September 2021 and, after this date, employers need to decide whether to pay all their workers’ wages or let them go.

August 2021 was the first month companies had to pay 20 per cent of their staff’s wages if they were on furlough, along with their pension and National Insurance Contributions (NICs).

During the worse months of the pandemic, where unemployment was highest, companies proposed 150,000 job cuts a month, revealed the Insolvency Service.

If employers plan to make 20 employees or more redundant, they have to notify the Insolvency Service when they start the process.

Recent data revealed that 1.9 million workers were still on the furlough scheme at the end of June 2021, and many experts expected these workers to be made redundant.

However, as mentioned, August saw the lowest amount of redundancy proposals so far this year.

Due to this data, the once forecast unemployment rate in autumn may be smaller than expected – says the Director of the Institute for Employment Studies, Tony Wilson.

For more information or advice on related issues, please contact our team today.

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• Work in ‘critical elements of national infrastructure’; and
• Their absence must be likely to result in the loss or compromise of this infrastructure; and
• Have a major detrimental impact on the availability, integrity or delivery of essential services; or
• Have a significant impact on national security, defence or the functioning of the state.

Affected employees will only be able to leave self-isolation to undertake critical work and must otherwise self-isolate.
The 16 sectors and appropriate Government departments are:

To qualify for an exemption, an employer must contact the appropriate department with information on the individuals they wish for it to apply to, their roles, and the likely impact of their self-isolation.
If agreed, the department will then write to the employer with the names of exempted employees. An exemption will only apply to employees whose employer receives such a letter that names them.
Other arrangements apply to workers in frontline health and social care roles and up to 500 workplaces in the food supply chain will be able to use daily testing instead of self-isolation from next week as part of a separate initiative.
Link:  https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-workplace-guidance

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• Job Support Scheme
• Self-Employment Income Support Scheme
• Bounce Back Loans & the Pay as You Grow Scheme
• Extensions to other loan schemes
• Extended tax deferrals
• Extended VAT cut for Tourism & Hospitality
• Conclusion

Job Support Scheme
Saying that it is “fundamentally wrong to hold people in jobs that only exist inside the furlough”, the Chancellor announced the launch of a new Job Support Scheme (JSS).
The scheme will come into effect on 1 November 2020 for six months and will apply to employees who work a minimum of 33 per cent of their usual hours. The Government and the employer will then pay one-third of the remaining amount each, with the employee forgoing the pay they would have received for the remaining one-third of their usual hours not worked. The Government contribution will be capped at £697.92 per month.
The scheme means that employees working one-third of their usual hours and not affected by the cap will receive at least 77 per cent of their usual wages, according to the Treasury.
The Chancellor confirmed that the JSS is open to all small and medium-sized enterprises and to larger businesses that have been “adversely affected by COVID-19”, subject to certain conditions such as not making capital distributions including dividends while using the scheme.
The scheme will be open to employers, irrespective of whether they previously used the CJRS. However, the employees they claim for cannot be on a redundancy notice.
Additionally, the Chancellor confirmed that employers will be able to use both the JSS and Coronavirus Job Retention Bonus at the same time. The Coronavirus Job Retention Bonus, announced earlier this year, will provide employers with a one-off £1,000 grant in respect of every employee they bring back from furlough and pay an average of £520 a month between 1 November 2020 and 31 January 2021.
The JSS bares a strong resemblance to the German Kurzarbeit scheme, which was first introduced after the 2008 financial crisis and was reinstated earlier this year. The scheme, which is in some ways less generous than the CJRS, is credited with being effective in saving jobs at a much lower cost to the taxpayer. Both the CBI and TUC had advocated variations of the German scheme.

Self-Employment Income Support Scheme
The Chancellor moved on to announce a six-month extension to the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) for those self-employed individuals currently eligible.
A third grant will cover the three months from November to the end of January, paying 20 per cent of average monthly profits, capped at £1,875.
Meanwhile, a fourth grant will cover the period from February to the end of April, with the level set to be determined at a later date.
Self-employed individuals and members of partnerships to whom all of the following apply are currently eligible for grants from the SEISS:
Carry on a trade that has been adversely affected by Coronavirus;

• Traded in the tax year 2018-2019 and submitted a Self-Assessment tax return on or before 23 April 2020 for that year;
• Traded in the tax year 2019-2020;
• Intended to continue to trade in the tax year 2020-2021;
• Have trading profits of less than £50,000 and more than half of their total income comes from self-employment. This can be with reference to at least one of the following conditions:

• • Trading profits and total income in 2018-2019
  • Average trading profits and total income across up to the three years between 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019.

The scheme is not available to people working through their own limited companies.

Bounce Back Loans and Pay as you Grow
Moving away from direct support for employment and self-employment, the Chancellor said the second challenge facing the economy is the effect of the crisis on businesses’ cash flow.
He announced the extension of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) through Pay as you Grow (PAYG), which will allow all businesses in receipt of BBLS loans the option to repay over a period of up to 10 years, nearly halving their monthly payments.
There will also be an option for businesses to move to interest-only repayments for up to three six-month periods or to take one six-month payment holiday. The six-month payment holiday will only be available to businesses that have already made six payments.
The BBLS provides loans of between £2,000 and £50,000, up to a cap of 25 per cent of turnover and backed by a 100 per cent Government guarantee to the lender. The Government covers interest payments for the first 12 months of the loan, with the borrower only required to make repayments after that period.
The deadline for businesses to apply for loans under the BBLS has also been extended until 30 November 2020.

Other loan schemes
Addressing the other business loan schemes announced since the beginning of the crisis, the Chancellor confirmed that repayments under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) can be extended to a term of up to 10 years.
CBILS is available to UK-based businesses with turnovers of up to £45 million, offering loans of up to £5 million, backed by an 80 per cent Government guarantee to the lender, with the Government also covering interest and fees for the first 12 months.
As with BBLS, the Chancellor confirmed the deadline for applying for CBILS will be extended to 30 November 2020, as will the deadlines for the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) and the Future Fund.
He said that the Treasury is working on “a new, successor loan programme, set to begin in January.”
Meanwhile, he said that the Bank of England’s COVID-19 Corporate Financing Facility will remain open until 22 March 2021.

Extended tax deferrals
The Chancellor moved next to deal with outstanding taxes owed by businesses and individuals to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), following deferrals earlier in the year.
He confirmed a VAT deferral ‘New Payment Scheme’ which will allow businesses that deferred VAT between March and June 2020 an option to spread payment in 11 equal instalments over the 2021-2022 financial year. The payments had been due in full by the end of March 2021.
The scheme will be open to all businesses that took up the offer of a deferral, but they will need to opt-in to benefit from the extended repayment period. HMRC is expected to put this process in place early in the new year.
He then moved to announce similar arrangements for individuals who deferred their Self-Assessment payments on account in July 2020. Those with up to £30,000 of self-assessment liabilities will be able to arrange an additional 12-month repayment plan through the HMRC self-service Time to Pay facility. This means the deferred payment will not need to be made in full until January 2022.

Extended VAT cut for Tourism & Hospitality
Finally, the Chancellor confirmed an extension to the temporary five per cent rate of VAT for certain goods and services in the tourism and hospitality sectors from 13 January 2021 to 31 March 2021, after which the rate will revert to 20 per cent.

Conclusion
The extent of the Chancellor’s announcements will have taken many people by surprise, having far exceeded once again the measures that were trailed in advance of his speech.
However, it remains to be seen whether these measures will be sufficient to match the scale of the economic challenge in the months ahead.
The Chancellor will hope that the JSS, in particular, will help avert a wave of redundancy announcements in the coming weeks as the CJRS comes to an end.
Link: Winter Economy Plan

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