Covid catch up

There’s no doubt history will record 2020 as an exceptional year. While the future is still uncertain for many of us, there are always constants in life. Like taxes. With the January tax deadline looming, now is a good time to review your financial documentation. The various government support schemes for this financial year may mean you need to retain additional information this time.

And as we hope 2021 brings a brighter future, now is also a good time to think about how our writing business might adapt in a post-Covid future.

Self-Employed Income Support

The Government’s Self-Employed Income Support Scheme paid out two tranches of grant money. The first grant was a payment for three months, offering 80% of your average self-employed monthly earnings, based upon your last three year’s average trading profit. The maximum payable was £7,500.

The second payment was calculated at 70% of your average self-employed monthly earnings over the same period, with a maximum payable of £6,570.

To be eligible for the second payment, you needed to demonstrate your business had been adversely affected by Covid-19 at the time of your claim. Therefore, any documentation confirming cancelled commissions, workshops, talks, book signing opportunities, etc, should be retained because these prove your eligibility for the payment. Keep this evidence with any other documentation you retain for this year’s tax return.

If you received payments through this scheme, HMRC will treat it as a grant payment for this financial year. That means you don’t have to pay it back. But they will consider it part of your selfemployed income. Therefore, it forms part of your taxable income for this financial year, both for income tax and National Insurance contributions.

As these grants form part of your 2020-2021 tax return, you should also retain any documentation relating to them, especially the amount you received and the grant claim reference.

July deferment

At the end of July 2020, many selfemployed writers would normally have made their second payment-on-account for the 2019-20 tax year. If you were experiencing financial hardship, the

‘Here in France,’ she explains, ‘we locked down earlier and with more draconian measures in place. We couldn’t travel further than a kilometre from the house and only then for a maximum of an hour, taking with us a piece of paper identifying one of five reasons we were outdoors. Life really was on hold. All visits to and from the UK became impossible, so research trips were cancelled straight away and arrangements for possible talks put on hold. Most importantly for me, the lockdown came just as I was completing my book and I couldn’t travel to take a number of photos to be placed in the text.’

But there are always ways and means, so Suzie began calling friends. ‘I had to ask favours of photographers and writing connections in the places I was supposed to visit to either take them for me or search their archives for images they didn’t mind me using.’

Covid-19 restrictions also affected Suzie’s proofreading business.

‘Proofreading also seemed to dry up as publishers changed publication dates to later in the year. This “work with words,” as I call it, supports my writing work. My small advance was long spent, so things started looking pretty grim. As my husband also works in the creative industries, as a ceramicist, his work was seriously affected too.’

Luckily, for Suzie, the French Government support scheme for self-employed people was simple and straightforward to apply for.

‘The French government quickly moved to support the self-employed. It was a scheme where you simply compared monthly income in 2019 to 2020 figures. My income had dropped significantly and I worked out I was eligible for two months’ support. It was easy to apply, as we have to submit simple quarterly tax returns so year-onyear records are to hand.’

Contingency funding

However, this wasn’t the only support that Suzie tapped into. When she heard about the Authors’ Contingency Fund, administered by the Society of Authors, she thought it was worth an application.

‘I was very lucky to see the post relating