Extra help for Self Employed Also
The Government has announced that Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has been extended until 31 March 2021, meaning it will have been in place for a year. What are the key things to know?
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme being extended means it will remain open until 31 March 2021. For claim periods until January 2021 employees will receive 80% of their usual salary for hours not worked, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month.
The government will review the scheme in January to decide whether employers should contribute more. You can claim for employees who were employed and on your PAYE payroll on 30 October 2020 and you must have made an RTI submission to HMRC between 20 March 2020 and 30 October 2020, notifying a payment of earnings for that employee.
Employer contributions will be the same as in August 2020, i.e. you will only be asked to cover the NI and employers’ pension contributions. This will be reviewed in January.
The launch of the Job Support Scheme has been postponed and the Job Retention Bonus (JRB) will not be paid in February 2021 and a retention incentive will be deployed at the appropriate time.
The purpose of the JRB was to encourage employers to keep people in work until the end of January. However, as the CJRS is being extended, the policy intent of the JRB no longer applies.
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Self Employment Income Support Scheme
In October, the government announced that grants under the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) for the period from 1 November 2020 to 31 January 2021 would be 40% of profits. A further increase has been announced along with other changes to the SEISS. What’s the full story?
The amount of grant, which applies across all the UK, is increased to 80% of average trading profits for the month of November 2020 alone. The grant for December and January remains at 40%. The effect of the November increase is to raise the total level of the grant available from 40% to 55% of trading profits across the period 1 November 2020 to 31 January 2020.
SEISS grants will be paid faster – you will be able to make a claim via HMRC’s site from 30 November rather than 14 December, as originally planned. The previous HMRC site for claiming SEISS grants has been closed. A new one will be available on 30 November. The grants can be claimed by self-employed individuals and members of partnerships whose income has been adversely affected by coronavirus.
For other Coronavirus related information, look for our blogs tagged ‘coronavirus‘.