North Kesteven District Council is committed to providing businesses the most relevant and important information from the Government and other business communities.
The Chancellor has set out a package of temporary, timely and targeted measures to support public services, people and businesses through this period of disruption caused by COVID-19.
This includes a package of measures to support businesses including:
- Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
- Deferring VAT and Income Tax payments
- Statutory Sick Pay relief package for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs)
- 12-month business rates holiday for all retail, hospitality, leisure and nursery businesses in England
- Small business grant funding of £10,000 for all business in receipt of small business rate relief or rural rate relief
- Grant funding of £25,000 for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with property with a rateable value between £15,001 and £51,000
- The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme offering loans of up to £5 million for SMEs through the British Business Bank
- New lending facility from the Bank of England to help support liquidity among larger firms, helping them bridge coronavirus disruption to their cash flows through loans
- The HMRC Time To Pay Scheme
For more information on any of the schemes please see the government website at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-employers-and-businesses-about-covid-19/covid-19-support-for-businesses
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Support for businesses through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
Under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, all UK employers will be able to access support to continue paying part of their employees’ salary for those employees that would otherwise have been laid off during this crisis. All businesses are eligible.
To access the scheme you will need to, designate affected employees as ‘furloughed workers,’ and notify your employees of this change - changing the status of employees remains subject to existing employment law and, depending on the employment contract, may be subject to negotiation. Submit information to HMRC about the employees that have been furloughed and their earnings through a new online portal (HMRC will set out further details on the information required)
HMRC will reimburse 80% of furloughed workers wage costs, up to a cap of £2,500 per month. HMRC are working urgently to set up a system for reimbursement. Existing systems are not set up to facilitate payments to employers.
Call for businesses to support in the supply of ventilators
The government is also calling for any businesses currently making or able to switch production to manufacturing ventilators or those who can support in the supply of ventilator components to register their details at https://ventilator.herokuapp.com/ or call the BEIS Business Support helpline on 0300 456 3565.
Update on Business Grants
In light of the CV19 situation, the Chancellor has announced support for business both in the form of business rates reliefs and grants. Work has been going on in the background around the eligibility criteria for these grants and guidance, as it currently stands there are two proposed schemes:-
Scheme 1 – Business Support Grants Fund
This scheme is the scheme originally announced in the budget on the 11th March, albeit the level of grant has increased from £3,000 to £10,000. The current proposal is that all properties in receipt of rural rate relief or small business rates relief on 11th March, including those in receipt of tapered relief, will be eligible for a grant payment of £10,000. Properties whose liability is calculated using the small business multiplier but not in receipt of small business rates relief will not qualify for this grant and neither will properties which are occupied for personal use, e.g. private stables, beach huts and moorings even if they are in receipt of relief.
Scheme 2 – Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Business Grants Fund
Announced by the Chancellor on the 17th March the current proposal is that properties which would have qualified for retail discount on 11th March will be entitled to either, £10,000 where the RV is £15,000 or less or £25,000 where the RV is greater than £15,000 and less than £51,000. The guidance will make clear the situation with regard retrospective changes, both in terms of ratepayer changes and changes to the rating list.
The expectation is that, subject to an exceptional discretion held by the local authority, subsequent retrospective changes will be ignored. Government are not expecting local authorities to make payments to eligible businesses until such time they have received funding and they are hoping to have this in place early April using NNDR1 and VOA data.
The intention is that this will be followed by a data capture exercise to determine whether the initial award was sufficient to cover the amount of grant paid out with additional payments being made where required. There will then be a reconciliation process at some point in the future to ensure the amount of grant to local government matches the actual grant paid to business. A new burdens assessment will be undertaken to compensate local authorities for the cost of administering these grants.
Self-employment Income Support Scheme
The Self-employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) will support self-employed individuals (including members of partnerships) whose income has been negatively impacted by COVID-19. The scheme will provide a grant to self-employed individuals or partnerships, worth 80% of their profits up to a cap of £2,500 per month.
HMRC will use the average profits from tax returns in 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 to calculate the size of the grant. The scheme will be open to those where the majority of their income comes from self-employment and who have profits of less than £50,000. The scheme will be open for an initial three months with people able to make their first claim by the beginning of June.
To be eligible for the scheme you must meet all the criteria below:
- Be self-employed or a member of partnership;
- Have lost trading/partnership trading profits due to COVID-19;
- File a tax return for 2018-19 as self-employed or a member of a trading partnership. Those who have not yet filed for 2018-19 will have an additional 4 weeks from this announcement to do so;
- Have traded in 2019-20; be currently trading at the point of application (or would be except for COVID 19) and intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020 to 2021
- Have trading profits of less than £50,000 and more than half of your total income come from self-employment. This can be with reference to at least one of the following conditions:
- Your trading profits and total income in 2018/19
- Your average trading profits and total income across up to the three years between 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19.
Individuals should not contact HMRC now. HMRC will use existing information to check potential eligibility and invite applications once the scheme is operational. HMRC will then pay the grant directly to eligible claimants’ bank account. HMRC is urgently working to deliver the scheme; grants are expected to start to be paid out by beginning of June 2020. For eligible individuals who have not submitted their returns for 2018-19, they will have 4 weeks’ notice from the date of the announcement to file their returns and therefore become eligible for this scheme.
HMRC is urgently working to deliver the scheme; grants are expected to start to be paid by the beginning of June 2020. This time is necessary to ensure that the scheme is both deliverable and fair. In the interim the self-employed will still able eligible for other government support including more generous universal credit and business continuity loans.
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