The Government announced at Budget 2021 that the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) will continue until September, with a fourth and a final fifth grant. This provides certainty to business as the economy reopens and means the SEISS will continue to be one of the most generous schemes for the self-employed in the world, and one of the few where support is committed until September.

The fourth and fifth SEISS grants are an estimated £13.5bn of additional support, taking total support for the self-employed to over £33 billion since the start of the pandemic.

Self-employed people may also have access to other elements of support available, including Restart Grants, the Recovery Loan scheme, business rates relief, and other business support schemes.

The Government has put in place a number of measures to facilitate trade with the EU, including publishing comprehensive guidance on the new arrangements.

HMRC continue to work closely with industry to ensure they are engaging with the new requirements for trade with the EU and can take the necessary steps to prepare, including through step by step guides, public information campaigns, cross-Government industry steering groups, webinars and events.

The Government has also provided a £20 million Brexit Support Fund to support small and medium sized businesses who are new to importing and exporting processes in adjusting to new customs procedures, rules of origin, and VAT rules when trading with the EU. In addition, small and medium sized businesses can use the grant to seek professional advice and/or training in these areas.

The Government has provided £25 billion in cash grants for businesses. The Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy has been working closely with local authorities to ensure that these grants are delivered as swiftly as possible and directed towards the businesses that have been most impacted by the pandemic.

This includes the £5 billion of funding allocated at the March Budget for Restart Grants and the discretionary Additional Restrictions Grant fund.

Local authorities received their allocation for the new Restart Grants on 6th April, and we encourage local authorities to pay eligible businesses as soon as possible.

To access the Additional Restrictions Grant top-up, local authorities will have to spend their existing allocation by the end of June. Those which have already done so will receive their top-up payment in the coming weeks.

Throughout the pandemic, the government has sought to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods while also supporting businesses and public services across the UK. To do this, the government has put in place an economic package of support which will provide businesses and individuals with certainty over the coming months, even as measures to prevent further spread of the virus change. The cumulative cost to the Government of this support since the start of the pandemic is £352 billion.

This support includes a new Restart Grant of up to £18,000 to over 680,000 business premises, giving them the cash certainty they need to plan ahead and safely relaunch trading over the coming months. Local authorities will also receive an additional £425 million of discretionary business grant funding under the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG), on top of the £1.6 billion already allocated to allow them to support their local businesses. This means local authorities will have received over £2.1 billion of discretionary grant funding to support businesses which are not eligible for Restart Grants, but which are nonetheless experiencing a severe impact on their business due to public health restrictions.

In order to support businesses to retain their employees and protect the UK economy, the Chancellor has extended both the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) until September 2021. In Northern Ireland, the CJRS has supported more than 280,000 jobs since the scheme’s inception, and as of 31 January, the SEISS provided £570 million of support to self-employed individuals in Northern Ireland. The fourth and fifth SEISS grants are an estimated £13.5 billion of additional support, taking total support for the self-employed to over £33 billion. The Government has also announced a major improvement in access to the self-employed scheme. As the deadline for 2019-20 tax returns has now passed, HMRC will use these tax returns for the fourth and fifth grants, provided they were submitted by 2 March. This means more than 600,000 people, many of whom became self-employed in 2019-20, may now be able to claim the fourth and fifth grants, bringing the total number of people who could be eligible to 3.7 million.

Businesses have also received billions in loans, tax deferrals, Business Rate reliefs, and general and sector-specific grants. And individuals and families have benefited from increased welfare payments, enhanced statutory sick pay, a stay on repossession proceedings and mortgage holidays. But we must recognise that it will not be possible to preserve every job or business indefinitely, nor stand in the way of the economy adapting and people finding new jobs or starting new businesses. As measures to control the virus change, it is right that government support should also evolve. Because of this, we continue to take a flexible approach and keep all impacts and policies under review.

The Woolard Review into the unsecured credit market found several potential harms from interest-free buy now pay later products. The Government recognises those risks. That is why on 2 February the Government announced its intention to regulate Buy Now Pay Later products. On 17 March, the Government tabled an amendment to the Financial Services Bill to allow the Government to bring Buy Now Pay Later products into the scope of FCA regulation in a proportionate way.

HMRC recognise that some employers will have complex and varied payroll runs, perhaps needing to claim for some staff who are paid weekly and some who are paid monthly.

Employers are required to take reasonable care to make an accurate claim within the deadline (which extends to 14 days after the month for which claims are being made) and should make their claims on time with the most accurate information available on the circumstances of their employees. HMRC expect employers to take all reasonable steps to amend their processes to be able to claim on time.

Employers can claim before, during or after they process their payroll as long as the claim is submitted by the relevant claim deadline.  Claims cannot be submitted more than 14 days before the claim period end date.

Employers can submit an initial claim and amend it later provided the initial claim is made on time and any amendments are made within 28 days after the end of the month. If the 28th day in a particular month falls on a non-working day, the deadline will be the next working day.

However, if they are still unable to meet the deadline, they should contact HMRC as soon as they are ready to claim, and HMRC may consider their reasonable excuse for missing the deadline. HMRC have published examples of reasonable excuses but in principle these are circumstances that stopped someone from fulfilling an obligation that they took reasonable care to meet.

Employers will not be able to submit a claim after the 14-day deadline has passed unless they have a reasonable excuse, taken reasonable care to try to claim on time and claimed without delay as soon as they were able to. Further information can be found at the COVID-19 coronavirus job retention scheme pages on GOV.UK.

Employers can also sign up to receive regular email updates from HMRC on their COVID-19 schemes, and thousands of people have joined live HMRC webinars which offer more support on changes to the CJRS and how they affect employers.

This is a matter for the Department for Work and Pensions.

A number of individuals are currently under criminal investigation by HMRC for offences linked to schemes subject to the Loan Charge.

In addition to schemes subject to the Loan Charge; since 1 April 2016, more than 20 individuals have been convicted for offences relating to arrangements which have been promoted and marketed as tax avoidance, including offences related to disguised remuneration. These have resulted in over 100 years of custodial sentences. The majority of these convictions relate to promoters.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) do not engage in, or enter into, disguised remuneration (DR) schemes. It is possible for a contractor providing services to HMRC to use a DR scheme without the department’s knowledge or participation. Where HMRC become aware of a contractor who is using a DR scheme, they take robust compliance action, including immediate action to terminate the engagement. These individuals are subject to the same tax compliance action in respect of their DR scheme use as any other scheme user.

The careful and considered Independent Loan Charge Review found that it was right to tackle disguised remuneration (DR) tax avoidance and that everyone should pay their fair share of tax.

HMRC do not engage in, or enter into, DR schemes. It is possible for a contractor providing services to HMRC to use a DR scheme without the department’s knowledge or participation. Where HMRC become aware of a contractor who is using a DR scheme, they take robust compliance action, including immediate action to terminate the engagement. These individuals are subject to the same tax compliance action in respect of their DR scheme use as any other scheme user.

The Government announced at Budget that the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) will continue with a fourth and final fifth grant. The fourth and fifth grants are an estimated £13.5bn of additional support, taking total support for the self-employed to over £33 billion since the start of the pandemic. This provides certainty to business as the economy reopens and means the SEISS will continue to be one of the most generous schemes for the self-employed in the world.

Further information about the fourth grant is available in recently published guidance, at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-a-grant-through-the-coronavirus-covid-19-self-employment-income-support-scheme. Further detail on how the fifth grant will operate will be confirmed in future guidance, which will be published in due course.

HMRC’s latest estimates of those affected by the Loan Charge are included in their GOV.UK publication titled Independent Loan Charge review: HMRC report on implementation.

As set out in this report, in January 2020, HMRC wrote to more than 55,000 individuals and employers who were identified as potentially affected by the Loan Charge. HMRC estimate the changes to the Loan Charge enacted in Finance Act 2020 took 11,000 people out of paying the charge altogether.

The report goes on to state that 5,600 employers and individuals settled their use of disguised remuneration schemes in the period to 30 September 2020.

HMRC still retain ownership of the freehold interest in Custom House, London. The advice they have received from external surveyors is that the value of their freehold interest is probably negligible as it is subject to an unexpired long lease on the property which is owned by Mapeley, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contractor. The value of the grant of the long leasehold interest was reflected in the PFI contractor’s bid price at the start of the contract.

HMRC understand that Mapeley have received an offer for their unexpired long leasehold interest in the property, subject to planning permission being granted, for the development of a hotel, but is not party to the details of that proposal. HMRC have no interest in, or information about, any additional land that may be proposed as part of a wider redevelopment of the area.

HMRC are carefully considering the Upper Tribunal decision of 12 April.

The decision does not affect the Loan Charge legislation which was subject to an independent review in 2019. The Independent Loan Charge Review assessed the impact of the Loan Charge policy on affected taxpayers. Its careful and considered report found that it was right to tackle disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes and that everyone should pay their fair share of tax.

The report also examined the question of from when the Loan Charge should apply and concluded that the law about the tax treatment of DR loan schemes was clear from 9 December 2010. This was when draft legislation was published setting out that income provided through schemes using third parties, such as loan schemes, would be subject to Income Tax and NICs.

HMRC’s latest estimates of those affected by the Loan Charge are included in their GOV.UK publication titled Independent Loan Charge review: HMRC report on implementation.

As set out in this report, in January 2020, HMRC wrote to more than 55,000 individuals and employers who were identified as potentially affected by the Loan Charge. HMRC estimate the changes to the Loan Charge enacted in Finance Act 2020 took 11,000 people out of paying the charge altogether.

The report goes on to state that 5,600 employers and individuals settled their use of disguised remuneration schemes in the period to 30 September 2020.

The Government already makes available a VAT relief on emergency alarm systems designed to be operated by a disabled person to call for help in case of illness or injury.

VAT makes a significant contribution towards the public finances, raising about £130 billion in 2019/20, and helping fund the Government's priorities including on health, schools, and defence. Extending the current VAT relief to all personal safety alarms would come at a significant cost to the Exchequer and would require reductions in spending or tax rises elsewhere.

Given this, there are no current plans to extend the scope of the relief already in place. However, the Government keeps all taxes under review.

The Government recognises the importance of supporting the self-employed, including freelancers, during the COVID-19 outbreak and has taken steps to deliver a very substantial economic support package, designed to provide individuals and businesses with the assistance and certainty they need over the course of the pandemic. This includes over £33bn of support provided to eligible self-employed individuals through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), as well as increased levels of Universal Credit, Extended Loss Carry Back rules, the Recovery Loan scheme, tax deferrals, rental support, mortgage holidays, self-isolation support payments and other business support grants.

As restrictions are eased, economic activity and demand will gradually pick up as a result, and the Government will continue to consider how it can support all parts of the labour market, recognising that businesses will need some time to recover and adapt.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) do not engage in, or enter into, disguised remuneration (DR) schemes. It is possible for a contractor providing services to HMRC to use a DR scheme without the department’s knowledge or participation. Where HMRC become aware of a contractor who is using a DR scheme, they take robust compliance action, including immediate action to terminate the engagement. These individuals are subject to the same tax compliance action in respect of their DR scheme use as any other scheme user.

HMRC are carefully considering the Upper Tribunal decision of 12 April in the case of Stephen Hoey v The Commissioners for HM Revenue and Customs.

It is estimated that about 13,000 businesses in Scotland benefit from the VAT reduced rate for hospitality, accommodation and attractions. Estimates are not available for lower level geographic areas.