Self-employed not forgotten with a £3bn-a-month rescue package

Self-employed workers can also apply for a gramt worth 80 per cent of their average monthly profits to help them cope with the financial impact of coronavirus the Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced. The money – up to a maximum od £ 2, 500 a month will be paid in a single lump sum but will no the start t begin to arrive until the start of June at the earliest.

|The number of people in the UK who have died with COVID-19 the disease caused by coronavirus – leaped by 113 in a day for the first time. Th3 total now stands at 578.

Self-employed people will be able to apply for a grant worth 80 per cent of their average monthly profits over the last three years up to £2, 500 a month.

At least half their income nee3ds to have come from self-employment as registered on the 2018-19 tax return filed in January –anyone who missed the filing deadline has four weeks from now to get it done and still qualify.

The scheme is open to those who earn under £50, 000 a year- up to 3.8 million of the 5million people registered as self-employed. Mr. Sunak said it was “reasonable, proportionate and fair” to exclude those with taxable profits above £50, 000, including law partners, freelance journalists, and other professionals. The chancellor said this group had average incomes of about £200, 000.

He said the new scheme, which will help self-employed people such as hairdressers, childminders and taxi drivers, would end up costing “tens of millions” of pounds, suggesting it may last much longer than the initial projection of three months.

The package brings the total cost of direct interventions to protect companies and workers from the outbreak to £60bn over the next three months.

The treasury has struggled to design the scheme only to cover those self-employed, hit by the Covid-19 crisis. As long as their profits were in the right range, eligible people could sit out the crisis at home, not work, and still receive the grant.

The chancellor’s package for the self-employed came with a big sting in the tail, with Mr. Sunak suggesting he would raise National Insurance contributions for the self-empl0yed once the crisis was over, saying it was ” harder to justify” their special tax treatment now the state has treated them as generously as employees.

Unlike the employee scheme, the self-employed can continue to work as they receive support

The money backdated to March will arrive directly into people’s banks accounts from HMRC but not until June 2020.

The grants will be taxable and will need to be declared on tax returns by January 2022.

Company owners who pay themselves a dividend are not covered.

The scheme does not cover people who only became self-employed very recently the chancellor said they could have to look to the benefits system for support.

The scheme is “ fair, targeted and deliverable” plan would help 95 per cent of people who earn most of their income via self-employment. 

Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell however said he was worried the money would come too late for millions. People need support in the coming days and fortnight, there is a real risk that without support until June the self-employed will feel they have to keep working, putting their own and others  health at risk.