HMRC has released more information about claiming – and being paid – under the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS).
The major, and very important, point is that in order to apply for the grant, applicants must have a Government Gateway ID.
If you don’t have a Government Gateway account, you should apply for one now. If you’ve got one and have forgotten your log in details, get it resurrected. This is the web page you need to go to – https://www.gov.uk/personal-tax-account.
Even though we, or another accountant, may have authority to act for you in most other matters, agents can not complete a SEISS claim on your behalf. If you wish to be paid out as quickly as possible, you will need your Government ID operational.
Of course, we will help as much as needed. We can talk you through the process, share your screen or even set up a Zoom video link. All of this will be useless if you do not have your own ID.
Eligibility Check
There is an “Eligibility Checker” on line where you can enter your UTR (Unique Tax Reference) and National Insurance number. It will tell you whether HMRC currently think you are eligible and a date and time from which you can start your claim. Dates are as early as next week which, again, emphasises the need to get you Government Gateway ID set up.
The Eligibility Checker will not tell you how much HMRC think you will be paid but it does give you the opportunity to raise a query should it say you are not eligible and you think you should be. We have already identified some errors.
The Eligibility Checker can be found here – https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/self-employment-support/enter-unique-taxpayer-reference.
Please check yourself. We simply do not have time to check every single client.
If the checker says you are not eligible but you think you should be, speak to us and we will check our records against the eligibility criteria.
What can we do?
Because HMRC has chosen to exclude agents, it is going to be slightly more difficult to provide the help and
support we like to give. However, we will be happy to help you through and, as mentioned above, can talk to you on the phone, share screens or utilise video links.
Because we don’t have the records, it is more difficult to help non-clients, but we can try. If you are not one of our clients and have a problem, we will try to assist.
Contact
You can contact us by the usual methods:
Telephone – 01509 816150
Email – enquiries@centralbusiness.co.uk (or direct to your Client Manager)
Webform – below
You may want to read our previous article about the 80% Grant Scheme for self-employed. This was published in March when the scheme was first announced and gives information about eligibility.
Or look at our other posts covering various announcements and initiatives, including the Bounce Back Loan Scheme:
