Sole traders and partners in partnerships who were eligible to apply for the last SEISS grant in May are going to be eligible to apply for another, with applications open from Monday 17 August. If you didn't meet the basic income eligibility criteria for the first grant, you won't meet them for the second one either. They're exactly the same. This second grant isn't going to help anyone whose income meant that they were not eligible for the first one.
This time the payment will be at a slightly lower level; the first one was at 80% of three months of average profits (quantified on a basis that we won’t go over yet again), capped at £7,500. The second one is at 70% of the exact same average profits figure, meaning that the grant will be 7/8ths of the previous one, and the cap is £6,570.
You can only apply if you've been affected by Coronavirus, and they're clear what that means for this second grant. You can claim this grant if "your business has been adversely affected on or after 14 July 2020". Although HMRC have produced some guidance around how you might judge whether that applies, that's guidance not law. The legislation is clear - your business simply has to have been adversely affected in some way since then.
That means it'd be quite possible for it to be appropriate to claim one grant and not the other. For those who meet the basic income condition, there are four possible permutations:
- Claiming both grants. Most claimants will probably have been legitimately adversely affected over both periods so will claim both payments.
- Claiming neither grant. Some industries have done well over this period, and for many people there's no claim to legitimately make.
- Claiming the first grant but not the second. You may have suffered over the first few months of the crisis, but as of July you'd got back to normal and are expecting similar income in these summer months as you’d usually have, in which case it’ll be appropriate to have claimed the first grant but not the second.
- Claiming the second grant but not the first. If your income was unaffected over the early months of Coronavirus then you won’t have claimed the first grant, but perhaps now the jobs you were working on are finishing up and not being fully replaced because of the crisis, in which case it’ll be appropriate to claim the second grant.
As before, you 'll have to certify that your income has been affected, and it’s always possible HMRC will one day check up on that – a self-employed-person who winds up with similar income as usual in 2020-21 AND a grant may have some questions to answer. There's nothing in that basic scenario that indicates there's definitely a problem - your income this year may be bigger than last year, but if it would have been bigger still were it not for Coronavirus then you've been adversely affected nonetheless, and you absolutely qualify. But the question could be eventually asked. And you have to certify that you are still operating your self-employed business – which won’t be the case if, for example, you moved your business into a limited company since 5 April 2019, or you’ve left the UK and don’t meet the criteria for reporting self-employed income here on an eventual 2020-21 tax return.
And don't forget - it's taxable. It'll go on your eventual 2020-21 Self Assessment Tax Return and be taxed as part of your income. If you're in the sensible habit of putting aside some of your income for the eventual tax on it, don't leave this payment out!