HMRC has finally published their guidance on the fifth SEISS grant. If you are initially eligible you may have recently received an email from HMRC about what you can do now to get ready. You will then be contacted again in mid-July by HMRC to give you a personal claim date. You have between this date and 30 September 2021 to make the claim if you are eligible and wish to claim the grant.
The fifth SEISS grant is about reduction in turnover. Turnover is your sales/fees. It is not the figure after expenses such as agent’s commission; this would give you your profit or loss. Your turnover figure also does not include the SEISS grants. In order to claim the fifth SEISS grant you will need to know your turnover figure for the 12 months commencing 1 or 6 April 2020. Most sole traders will have a year-end of 31 March or 5 April 2021 and, therefore, working out the turnover figure required will be calculated as part of the process of preparing the 2020/21 income and expenditure account and 2020/21 tax return anyway. For those with a year end other than 31 March or 5 April, the calculation will be more involved, however, this has routinely been part of our calculations when determining whether overlap profit relief can be utilised effectively.
You will also need to determine your turnover for a pre-Covid year: 2019/20 or 2018/19.
Those who started trading in 2019/20 and did not trade in any of the tax years 2016/17, 2107/18 or 2018/19 will not be required to provide turnover figures and will receive a grant based on 80% of trading profits.
Here is the link for the HMRC guidance: Check if you can claim a grant through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)