The fourth Self-Employment Income Support Scheme grant is worth up to £7,500 - do you know how to claim?

Updated: 26 April 2021 – The fourth Self-Employment Income Support Scheme grant is worth up to £7,500 & covers the period from February 2021 to April 2021. The online service to claim the fourth grant will be available from late April 2021. If you’re eligible based on your tax returns, HMRC will contact you in mid-April to give you a date that you can make your claim from. It will be given to you either by email, letter or within the online service.

The Government Gateway is now open for the fourth round of SEISS grants – you will need to login and will then be given a date to return to make your application

You must make your claim on or before 1 June 2021 – before you claim, you must meet all the eligibility criteria for the fourth grant.

What you’ll need to make your claim

You’ll need your:

Self Assessment Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR)
National Insurance number
Government Gateway user ID and password
UK bank details including account number, sort code, name on the account and address linked to the account

Only provide bank account details where a BACS payment can be accepted – you may also need to answer questions about your passport, driving licence or information held on your credit file.

If you do not have some of those things

Find out how to get your Unique Taxpayer Reference or National Insurance number.

If you cannot remember your Government Gateway ID or password, you can attempt to recover them. You can do this when making your claim. You may need to answer questions about your passport, driving licence or information held on your credit file. If you do not have a Government Gateway ID or password, you can create one when making your claim.

How to claim

The online service will be available from late April 2021 – HMRC will contact you in mid-April to give you a date that you can make your claim from. It will be given to you either by email, letter or within the online service. You’ll not be able to claim before this date.

Look out for GOV.UK / HMRC scams

You can check a list of genuine HMRC contacts if you receive any suspicious texts, calls or emails claiming to be from HMRC as this may be a scam.

You must make the claim yourself. You must not ask a tax agent or adviser to claim on your behalf as this will trigger a fraud alert, which will delay your payment.

HMRC will check claims and take appropriate action to withhold or recover payments found to be dishonest or inaccurate. If you know you are not eligible for the grant and do not tell us, you may have to pay a penalty.

If an amendment to your tax return on or after the 3 March 2021 lowers the amount you’re eligible for, you’ll need to tell HMRC within 90 days. You may then need to pay back some or all of the grant. If you do not tell HMRC, they will contact you after the deadline for making amendments to tell you what amount you may need to pay back.

If you’re not sure if your amount of grant has lowered, you should contact HMRC for further help.

In order to claim the fourth grant, you must reasonably believe that you’ll suffer a significant reduction in trading profits, due to reduced business activity, capacity, demand or inability to trade due to coronavirus between 1 February 2021 and 30 April 2021. You must keep evidence that shows how your business has been impacted by coronavirus resulting in less business activity than otherwise expected.

HMRC expects you to make an honest assessment about whether you reasonably believe your business will have a significant reduction in profits.

Significant reduction

Before you make a claim, you must decide if the impact on your business between 1 February 2021 and 30 April 2021 will cause a significant reduction in your trading profits for the tax year you report them in. HMRC cannot make this decision for you because your individual and wider business circumstances will need to be considered when deciding whether the reduction is significant – you should wait until you have a reasonable belief that your trading profits are going to be significantly reduced, before you make your claim.

You do not have to consider any other coronavirus scheme support payments that you have received when deciding if you’ve had a significant reduction in your trading profits.

Here are some examples of people who have been impacted by coronavirus that will help you decide

How HMRC works out your eligibility based on your tax returns

To work out your eligibility for the fourth grant HMRC will first look at your 2019 to 2020 Self Assessment tax return. Your trading profits must be no more than £50,000 and at least equal to or more than your non-trading income. If you’re not eligible based on your 2019 to 2020 Self Assessment tax return, HMRC will then look at the tax years 2016 to 2017, 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020.

Find out more information on how HMRC works out trading profits and non-trading income for the self-employment income support scheme.

How different circumstances affect the scheme

There are some circumstances that can affect your eligibility such as if:

your return is late, amended or under enquiry
you’re a member of a partnership
you had a new child
you have loans covered by the loan charge provisions
you claim averaging relief
you’re a military reservist
you’re non-resident or chose the remittance basis

If you claim Maternity Allowance this will not affect your eligibility for the grant.

Find out more information on how your circumstances affect your eligibility.

Claim a Grant by clicking here

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The information contained above is for general guidance purposes only. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the contents are accurate, please note that each individual has different circumstances and it is essential that you seek appropriate professional advice before you act on any of the information contained herein. HB Accountants can accept no liability for any errors or omission or for any person acting on or refraining from acting on the information provided in the above