The Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS)

In the recent announcement, the chancellor has extended the SEISS for six months with a third and fourth grant being made available. The third grant will cover November 2020 to January 2021 but has been lowered to 20% of their average trading profits and will be capped at £1,875. The fourth grant covers February 2021 to April 2022. Details of when applications will open or when money will reach people’s bank accounts are yet to be released.

Delay to self-assessment tax payments

As well as the income support scheme, the self-employed and others who do self-assessment tax returns are now able to delay their January 2021 payments until January 2022. The Government had already provided more time to pay taxes due by extending the payment that was due by July 2021 until 31 January 2021.

Those who are due to pay up to £30,000 in tax by 31 January 2021 will be able to use HMRC’s ‘Time to Pay’ service to pay over an additional 12 months, meaning they won’t need to pay in full until January 2022.