As you know we are trying to keep you updated as things are announced and we add more assistance in the Dropbox.
It appears likely, but has not yet been formally confirmed, that Zero Hours Employees and Workers will be eligible for Furlough Leave if there is no work for them because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
In preparation for this, we have added a Furlough Leave Agreement with which you can agree the FL in advance or, if you have already ceased offering hours, put them on FL should they be included in the scheme.
The big news, just announced is on support for the self-employed and these are the headlines:
Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, has just announced outline details of the rescue package for self-employed individuals.
Here are the key points:-
- a new self-employed income support scheme will pay self-employed people a taxable grant worth 80% of average monthly income, capped at £2,500pm
- income will be calculated by taking the average of income over the last three years
- self-employed people can claim these grants and continue to do business (so it’s not the same as furlough leave, where employees have to remain at home)
- the scheme is only open to anyone with trading profits of up to £50k (this covers 95% of self-employed people). Self-employed people who earn more will not qualify.
- the scheme is only open to those who make the majority of income from self-employment; if you are employed but have a ‘side job’ which is self-employed, you will not be eligible
- the scheme is only those who have submitted a tax return for 2019 (this is to minimise fraud). However, those who did not submit their tax return by the due date of 31 January 2020, and have not yet submitted one, can still submit a tax return for 2019 for a further four weeks from today
- there are no steps to take. HMRC will contact eligible self-employed people directly and pay the grant straight into their bank account after inviting them to fill out an online form
the self-employed income support scheme will be open to people across UK for at least 3 months. However, the scheme is unlikely to be up and running before the end of June, so it will not help with immediate cash flow issues.
