The second round of support under the government Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) has now opened. This offers a one-off grant payment of up to £6,750. This is open to all self-employed including partners within a farming business.

To be eligible you need to have been adversely affected by Covid-19 since July 14th. Your business could be adversely affected by coronavirus if, for example:

If you are unable to work because you:

• are shielding
• are self-isolating
• are on sick leave because of coronavirus
• have caring responsibilities because of coronavirus
• have had to scale down, temporarily, stop trading or incurred additional costs because your supply chain has been interrupted
• you have fewer or no customers or clients
• your staff are unable to come in to work
• one or more of your contracts have been cancelled
• you had to buy protective equipment so you could trade following social distancing rules

All of the following must also apply to be eligible:

• you traded in the tax year 2018 to 2019 and submitted your Self Assessment tax return on or before 23 April 2020 for that year
• you traded in the tax year 2019 to 2020
• you intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020 to 2021

There is no minimum threshold and therefore if you believe you are eligible you should make a claim and keep the evidence of how you believe you have been adversely affected, should you be inspected.

You do not need to have made a claim under round one to be eligible for round two and data reveals that only 59% of potentially eligible businesses submitted a claim under round one. The link to apply is below and it only takes 5 minutes to complete if you have the required information as set out below:

National Insurance number
Unique taxpayer reference number
Government Gateway ID

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-a-grant-through-the-self-employment-income-support-scheme

As an example a family farming partnership that made on average £100,000 profit over the reference years and has three partners, assuming each partner’s profit share is equal, each partner would be able to claim £5,833, assuming they were entitled to claim.

If you would like further advice on help and support available, please contact Harry at harryedwards@fcgagric.com or your local FCG office, or your accountant.