CORONAVIRUS Q&A
Telegraph Money reporter Marianna Hunt, Emma Jones, the founder of Enterprise Nation, and Andy Chamberlain, the IPSE policy director, answer your questions on help for the self-employed.
QI’m a bricklayer and even though building sites were told they can stay income, open, my mine wife closed. is a self-employed I have no hairdresser and I have no idea how we will look after our baby daughter and pay our bills. What can we do?
AThe could new be available self-employed to your package wife if she has been self-employed for more than 12 months with less than £50,000 in profits. It is 80 per cent of average monthly profits over three years. HMRC will contact those eligible and a three-month lump sum will be paid in June. This is a taxable grant.
Ask your mortgage provider for time to pay. If you are self-employed, you could benefit from the scheme announced by Rishi Sunak. Selfassessment tax bills due in July 2020 have also been deferred. (Emma)
QI’m self-employed but started my business in January last year, so don’t appear to be eligible. Is anyone with a business less than two years old being left out in the cold?
AIf you didn’t fill in a tax return for 2018-19, you won’t qualify. You can claim Universal Credit, provided you meet the criteria. Although the Government has temporarily raised payments to £94.25, they are still very low and many self-employed will find this hard to live on. (Marianna)
QIs the Government going to assist small self-employed people who were struggling before Covid-19?
AThe self-employed income support scheme is targeted exactly at very small self-employed people. You have to have filed a tax return for the 2018-19 tax year (if you haven’t done it, you have four weeks from now) and earned less than £50,000 (averaged over the last years, or in that year alone if that’s all you have) to be eligible. (Andy)
QAs a contractor who pays myself through a Ltd company with a small salary and the remainder in dividends (total under £50,000), what support can I potentially get?
AIt would seem that those running a limited company and paying themselves via dividends don’t qualify for the self-employment income support scheme. Gov.uk says if you are a director of your own firm and paid through PAYE you may get support via the job retention scheme. (Marianna)
Send your questions on housing to Thea Carroll, a buying agent, and Andrew Boast, a conveyancer, by midday on Monday to yourstory@telegraph.co.uk