Further funding has been announced by Doncaster Council. The grant is to support home-working, mobile and self-employed businesses in Doncaster that have lost trade due to the pandemic and have been ineligible for other schemes.

The grant will see eligible businesses receive a one-off payment of £1,000 from the council’s Discretionary Grant Scheme.

Doncaster council said: “Applications will be considered from local, independent businesses forced to close due to lockdown restrictions as well as those that have been able to open but are struggling because of a fall in trade.

“Applying for the grant is straightforward and we urge small businesses to check the eligibility criteria and if eligible, get their applications in to the council as soon as possible so we can process them quickly and deliver the support needed.”

Further details of the grant, as well as other local authority grants, are available here.

26th January 2021

On 5th January 2021, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a further £4.6 billion in business support grants for businesses forced to close due to the latest lockdown.

This follows the Prime Minister’s recent announcement of a third national lockdown, that these business will be closed until at least February half-term in order to help control the virus, and, together with the wide range of existing support, provides them with certainty through the Spring period.

The cash is provided on a per-property basis to support businesses through the latest restrictions, and is expected to benefit over 600,000 business properties, worth £4 billion in total across all nations of the UK.

The one-off grants are available as follows:

• £4,000 for businesses with a rateable value of £15,000 or under
• £6,000 for businesses with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
• £9,000 for businesses with a rateable value of over £51,000

The grants are available for businesses legally required to close.

The business support grants will be administered through local authorities, which (for our client base) is predominantly DMBC. Further information, when available, will be available from here.

GBM Accounts

6th January 2021

The Chancellor announced the latest support for small businesses on Thursday 26^th March 2020, in the form of the Self Employment Income Support Scheme.  This is aimed at people who are self employed, and importantly were self employed before the beginning of the current tax year.

It is aimed at levelling the position of the self employed with that of employees, who would potentially benefit from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

IMPORTANT – The scheme is only available for sole traders and members of partnerships.  It is not available if you operate your business through a limited company.

This scheme will allow you to claim a taxable grant worth 80% of your trading profits up to a maximum of £2,500 per month for the next 3 months. This may be extended if needed.

Who can apply

You can apply if you’re a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership and you:

• have submitted your Income Tax Self Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018-19
• traded in the tax year 2019-20
• are trading when you apply, or would be except for COVID-19
• intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020-21
• have lost trading/partnership trading profits due to COVID-19

Your self-employed trading profits must also be less than £50,000 and more than half of your income come from self-employment. This is determined by at least one of the following conditions being true:

• having trading profits/partnership trading profits in 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these profits constitute more than half of your total taxable income
• having average trading profits in 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19 of less than £50,000 and these profits constitute more than half of your average taxable income in the same period

If you started trading between 2016-19, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will only use those years for which you filed a Self-Assessment tax return.

If you have not submitted your Income Tax Self-Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018-19, you must do this by 23 April 2020.

HMRC will use data on 2018-19 returns already submitted to identify those eligible and will risk assess any late returns filed before the 23 April 2020 deadline in the usual way.

How much you’ll get

You’ll get a taxable grant which will be 80% of the average profits from the tax years (where applicable):

• 2016 to 2017
• 2017 to 2018
• 2018 to 2019

To work out the average HMRC will add together the total trading profit for the 3 tax years (where applicable) then divide by 3 (where applicable), and use this to calculate a monthly amount.

It will be up to a maximum of £2,500 per month for 3 months. HMRC will pay the grant directly into your bank account, in one instalment.

How to apply

You cannot apply for this scheme yet.

HMRC will contact you if you are eligible for the scheme and invite you to apply online. Individuals do not need to contact HMRC.

You will access this scheme only through GOV.UK. If someone texts, calls or emails claiming to be from HMRC, saying that you can claim financial help or are owed a tax refund, and asks you to click on a link or to give information such as your name, credit card or bank details, it is a scam.

After you’ve applied

Once HMRC has received your claim and you are eligible for the grant, they will contact you to tell you how much you will get and the payment details.

If you claim tax credits you’ll need to include the grant in your claim as income.

This latest scheme is in addition to support previously announced for small business, which can be found here. Please also see our previous blog article on the support.

Further to our recent blog about how we are responding to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, and in view of the lock down announced yesterday (23^rd March 2020), we have the following update:

1. At GBM Accounts, we are still working.  All of our employees are now working from home.
2. At the moment, face to face meetings to review accounts are not possible, but can be reviewed/approved remotely (Openspace/email/telephone).
3. In terms of communication, we are still using email to communicate with clients and Openspace to share documents.  Telephone calls to the main office number are OK.
4. As far as we are aware, normal filing deadlines are still being adhered to.  We have not seen anything to suggest otherwise.  Therefore, we will continue to try to meet these deadlines.  These are principally in relation to wages, CIS returns, VAT returns and company accounts.
5. For Self Assessment, the 2020 year closes on 5^th April 2020, and the deadline for submission of personal tax returns is 31^st January 2021.  However, where practical, we will continue to try and manage our client’s commitments in respect of this.
6. Following on from points 5 & 6, you may receive generic mailings in respect of asking for books and records, which are simply part of our normal system work.

We are working hard to try and minimise the disruption which we are all experiencing.  However, given the large number of changes which are being introduced in a short space of time, coupled with the different working environment, we would ask for patience.  If you have any issues which need dealing with, particularly in respect of wages, please contact us sooner rather than later.  As always, we will try and do our best for you.

Thank you

Nick, Tracy, Tracey, Linda & Alana

The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is having a profound and unprecedented effect on all aspects of our lives. The situation seems to be changing on a daily basis.  In respect of how this affects small businesses, since the Budget on 11^th March, there have been further announcements in respect of assistance.  There were a raft of announcements on 17^th March (which included increasing an initial grant of £3,000 to £10,000), and also on 20^th March (where employees’ wages were underwritten to 80%).

The latest announcement was lock down announced yesterday (23^rd March).

We have had a huge number of enquiries from clients in respect of help available from the Government.  The following is a summary of the measures announced so far:

• a Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
• deferring VAT and Income Tax payments
• a Statutory Sick Pay relief package for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs)
• a 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
• a 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

The full document is here.  It is correct as at time of writing (Tuesday afternoon, 24^th March 2020).

It is expected that further announcements will be made, particularly in respect of anyone who's self employed. We will communicate this information when it is available. In the meantime, if you have any questions,please feel free to contact us.