What is the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS)?

The Self-Employment income support scheme, also known as SEISS, was introduced by the government to support self-employed employees throughout the coronavirus outbreak. The scheme offers a grant payment worth 80% of someone's monthly trading profit, for a three-month period, worth up to £7500 in total.

The first round of the grants opened for applications on 13th May 2020 and then closed on 13th July 2020, as more lockdown followed in 2020, two more grants were made available to apply for.

On 3rd March 2021 it has been announced a fourth grant will be available to apply for from the end of April and thereafter a fifth grant to cover up until September 2021. The Fifth Grant is likely to be capped at a higher amount due to it covering a longer period.

Each grant covers the following periods:

1st Grant: April 2020 to June 2020 (3 Months)

2nd Grant: July 2020 to October 2020 (3 Months)

3rd Grant November 2020 to January 2021 (3 months)

4th Grant: February 2021 To April 2021 (3 months)

5th Grant: May 2021 to September 2021 (5 months)

How is the SEISS Calculated?

The first 3 grants that were available for self-employed individuals to apply for, was based on their total income for 2018/19 tax year, this would be the amount on their 2018/19 tax return that was submitted to HMRC. However, each grant then multiplies the profit figure by a certain percentage (dependent on the grant applied for), and then the amounts paid are capped.

Unlike the first three grants, the fourth grant, available to apply for in April, will be based on the individual's total income on their 2019/20 tax return. This has been good news to the 600,000 self-employed individuals who missed out on the first three grants because they had only become self-employed in the 2019 tax year.

If you are not eligible based on your 2019 to 2020 Self-Assessment tax return, HMRC can then look at the tax years 2016 to 2017, 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020

Who was eligible for the first 3 SEISS grants?

In order to be eligible for a grant under SEISS, all of the following must apply (please note that when we refer to self-employed this includes a partner in a partnership and when we refer to self-employment income/profits this includes partnership trading income/profits):

• You submitted a Self-Assessment tax return for the 2018/19 tax year, which included self-employment profits, by 23 April 2020 (see What if I have not submitted my 2018/19 tax return yet? and exceptions for certain groups of individuals).
• You were self-employed in the 2019/20 tax year and traded for at least part of that year
• You intended to continue trading in this tax year (2020/21) for at least part of the remainder of the year (or would do so but for coronavirus)
• You carry on a trade which has been adversely affected by the coronavirus. For the first grant, you needed to have been adversely affected at some point on or before 13 July 2020. For the second grant, you needed to have been adversely affected at some point on or after 14 July 2020 up to the closure of claims for second grants on 19 October 2020. There were additional conditions for the third grant.

Further support

If you have any questions regarding the SEISS grant, or how to now declare these in your tax return, then please contact Rebate My Tax direct where one of our experts can help you out.

All other information regarding the SEISS Scheme can be found on the government's website here.