Just had an email through from HMRC saying that they are aiming to get the 80% rebate system up by the end of April.
Even if they manage to do that it’s still 2 payrolls to get through with no revenue coming in.

Just had an email through from HMRC saying that they are aiming to get the 80% rebate system up by the end of April.
Even if they manage to do that it’s still 2 payrolls to get through with no revenue coming in.

Current statement is that payments are being aimed for beginning of June.

Self-employment Income Support Scheme

Let’s all take a moment to think of those less fortunate than ourselves such as Steve McNeil from TV geek-fest Go 8 BIt who instead of living it large, having beers with other IT spods, has instead been reduced by this terrible crisis to live streaming a family friendly Minecraft game on Twitch to make a living in these dark times.

It truly is the end of days.

@bearnecessities

That’s for self employed I thought. I’m a LTD co where cash in bank < wages/CT/rent/VAT by a long way! Getting scary!

Right you are then. That’s the job retention scheme, but you probably know that.

It’s a grant as well, as far as I know, rather than a rebate (and the website appears to be falling over a bit) and I’m creeping out of my area of expertise now 🙂

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

Well, I’ve just been put on a four-day week temporarily as of next month, along with most other staff. On the upside I no longer have to work Mondays, on the downside I no longer get paid for working Mondays.

Anyway, if Cougar is to be believed he’s now banned according to post on another thread.

I may not have been entirely serious.

8 months self employed here – so no support at all. Many self employed and PAYE with salaries 2, 3 times the average income will be given up to £7500, some who have had no loss of income.

Why are the most vulnerable being forgotten about ?

Similar story here @g5604

I don’t understand why this couldn’t be based upon a flat rate for all based upon number of dependents for both self employed and PAYEers, rather than a percentage of earnings for PAYEers and a different methodology for the self employed.

It seems that everyone is subsidising the earnings of people that were on very high salaries and their extravagant lifestyles whilst the likes of you and me who are setting out to create a business, not turning any profit due to buying essential tools and barely any savings (which I have for a contingency such as this) get sweet fa. We’re all affected. I’ve had clients call to say they couldn’t afford me now with them being laid off and cancelled my work.

Basing this remuneration package on percentages is patently unfair in my opinion.

Well, I’ve just been put on a four-day week temporarily as of next month

Looking forwards to seeing an extra 50% out of you. 😉
RM.

All these exceptions, basis on previous earnings and people falling through cracks etc…..
The simplicity of UBI would have been perfect.

Looking forwards to seeing…

I rather doubt that anyone is really looking forward to that.

My employer sent me home Tuesday as they closed the office. I’m on the list to possibly get a laptop to work from home, but no context or update since 10am Tuesday 🤷‍♂️

Quite literally living up to your username 🙂

just found out that your money put aside to pay your tax bill is treated as savings for universal credit – so not eligible for that either.

@g5604. I’ve dropped you a PM.

We make drugs, some of them medically critical.

I’ve been making the WHO hand sanitiser this week as we’re running out of bought-in stuff, then get the critical worker letter this afternoon.

On holiday next week…was meant to be trail building in Tuscany.

Thought id provide an update on my post back in page 12 regarding my close friend and her work, i phoned the boss on her behalf and explained the situation, the boss has been down t’day and explained that he has furlonged 10 workers across his bakerys so far due to minimal foot traffic/sales and he is going to pay the extra 20% of pay that his staff will miss out on for however long this continues, all bakery items not sold by 2pm are made up into food parcels and given to various groups set up to distribute to vulnerable people self isolating. If/when my friend is furlonged off from work she now knows that her entire wage will be payed for however long this continues so that is a massive relief for her son and herself.

Thanks to all who contacted me regarding offers of financial help, thankfully not now needed so take care of others around you.

Nice to hear a happy ending 👏👏

Is it just me or is this support for workers not worth the paper it’s written on? If businesses are allowed to go to the wall then jobs will be lost and employees won’t get the 80% of their salaries because they won’t have jobs. No business is going to take on debt when they’re hurtling towards insolvency, and they’re not going to keep on employees.

Is it just me or is this support for workers not worth the paper it’s written on? If businesses are allowed to go to the wall then jobs will be lost and employees won’t get the 80% of their salaries because they won’t have jobs. No business is going to take on debt when they’re hurtling towards insolvency, and they’re not going to keep on employees

It’s almost as though money needs to be “paused” for a while. No transactions in any direction

So I got the call yesterday – furloughed after 2 whole days of WFH – most of which was spent setting up VPN and software licensing.

Company wasn’t in great health anyway, and as the oil price has tanked I’m not expecting the doors to reopen again when this blows over (oil and gas equipment manufacturer).

Don’t see much point looking for anything else in this climate, would be fairly mental for anyone to be recruiting a colourer-in stress engineer just now.

Even if they manage to do that it’s still 2 payrolls to get through with no revenue coming in.

True but one PAYE payment to HMRC is roughly equivalent to a 1/4 of a total payroll so assuming you keep that 1/4, and you don’t have to pay the next one then your next payroll is 1/2 less painful. Then you only need to find a way through the one after that.

I can understand small businesses that manage hand to mouth, but for bigger ones if they can’t make 1 1/2 payrolls without revenue then, well…. I feel for the employees in the short term but the wider economy probably won’t miss them and so targeting company based support for them is in most cases pointless. We need a universal income to support the ones that lose their jobs. Any medium size business worth keeping will have 3+ months of costs in the bank. Don’t get me wrong Ive owned and run businesses that would have had to fire a lot of people in this very circumstance, but it wouldn’t have been for good management on my part. I learned my lessons and run my current business on a very different basis. There’s always some disaster round the corner whether is a marketing mis-hap, an industry shortage of critical widgets, a currency disaster….

On another note I can’t remember if it was in this thread, but I was moaning about Banks attitudes to the loans, but said some might be doing the right thing. Well I put a call into my local enterprise partnership who are part of the business bank group, and they’re offering up to 100K, no personal guarantee, 5-6%.

Yes debt is not to be taken on lightly, but if you needed to be assured of payroll in 4 weeks time thats a very simple route to getting it sorted assuming you can prove that you were viable until the crunch. You’ll pay no interest for 12 months, and assuming you get the Gov’t furlough monies you can pay it off without risk to your house. Thats how it should be done.

In essence there’s enough support it seems for viable businesses even if they live hand to mouth.

Yesterday I had the dubious job of asking customers to use the antibacterial spray/wipes and handgel before entering the store, whilst the majority of them did, there was still the odd arsehole who wouldn’t because the handgel was not antibacterial. What is up with these people?

@benpinnick

I don’t really follow you sorry

I did payroll yesterday and I still had to pay pretty much the normal amount to the staff and hmrc, and next month I’ll have to work out the average wages for all of the staff over a period (hourly paid, not fixed hours) and pay 80% of that plus NI, PAYE & pensions. Possibly some time after that I might get a grant back from HMRC if the systems are up but if not that’s it, we’re out of cash. I’d then have to look at a loan.

Daughters partner works for large local building firm, all received emails yesterday…
As of now you are all laid off without pay…
Meanwhile the millionaire owners continue as normal…. 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

@colp you can defer your PAYE and NIC payments for 12 months starting immediately. So this months payroll doesn’t need to pay the taxman by the 19th of next month. That saving can go towards next months salaries, and of course you’ll not need to pay PAYE and NIC on that month either.

Also worth remembering a good proportion of companies will have a vat payment due next month, also deferred. Depending on the business that could conceivably be a months pay on its own depending on the purchasing cycles of the business.

@benpinnick

Got you mate, cheers

Directors if very small businesses and startups have fallen through the gaps of the government support. I suspect it’s because the government do not want to support PSCs so genuine small businesses have been caught up with this.

Here’s the petition to give small company directors the same support as employees and the self employed http://chng.it/pKGL78jrY2

Our projects based consultancy work has all been cancelled or postponed by our clients, much if it is retail related so may never come back. The bike accessory side of the business is doing ok for now but it’s currently far from enough to support us on it’s own.
Worrying times but also thankful that were in a better position than many.

@cheers_drive they have said that directors can furlough themselves as long as they are not actively providing products or services to customers. They (we) can then claim on the job retention scheme. It was well covered by an FSB webinar last week.
That will cover 80% of PAYE income. I have no idea how they could manage dividends & not unintentionally benefit investors.

Don’t forget if you want to defer VAT, you must cancel the DD.

Colp- remember the 80% is likely to include employers NI plus pension.

ben- have you any reference to the paye/nic deferment please? Whereas the VAT detail is “straightforward” all I can find for PAYE/NIC is the HMRC time to pay service so it doesn’t seem as automatic as VAT an you have to get HMRC approval to defer PAYE.

Thanks

Mrs Zip here..

Regarding help for the self employed.

We are a partnership and we take our pay as drawings .

Does this mean that we will be able to furlough ourselves ?

Does the definition of £50,000 profit mean after we have paid our staff, overheads and ourselves?

FB-ATB you’re right. They’d said they would allow deferments on PAYE but it looks like that just means leniency for those who cant pay. Apologies! Seems a bit bonkers mind… My way sounds much better. Why expect to get paid when you’re probably handing back cash the other way anyway.

You never know they may switch it out yet.

Ben- an article I’d read stated that they expect companies to pay the PAYE via the deferred VAT. The 2 operating companies in the group I work for are (were) monthly net VAT reclaimers of c£300k so we’d like HMRC to get receipts elsewhere to refund us! Although with construction sites shutting we won’t be making any purchases to claim back VAT.

Further to my post re the 80% grant, this was updated on the govt website Fri pm:

Retention rebate detail

and includes the line:

HMRC will pay employers a grant worth 80% of an employee’s usual wage costs, up to £2,500 a month, PLUS the associated Employer National Insurance contributions and minimum automatic enrolment employer pension contributions on that subsidised wage.

My caps: looks like where the initial HMRC statement was a bit vague and most advisors took it to be 80% of employment on-costs, this seems to indicate its not.

In my defence I finish work at 1 on Fridays (*) so don’t contemplate anything work related after then! It also means the more work I can keep for usual hours, I can delay being furloughed! Shame as I was getting close to talking myself into buying a one of the Aeris frames on the recent PSA.

* Joys of construction industry- oh wait all our sites are now shut!

Been WFH but we’ll be furloughed from 1st.

Interesting call on directors really. If the directors of a company get into a situation where they don’t believe they can pay creditors (this would include employees as well as HMRC) then they have to shut the door and call in the liquidators or they could be “done” wrongful trading.

If they carry on operating the business after having known that the company was insolvent (unable to pay its bills and with debts that exceed the combined value of all its assets) they could be charged with wrongful trading….

Hmmm wonder when this little nugget will get day light and directors of companies will need to shut them down or get prosecuted themselves.

Well, after a week at home doing nothing, apparently there’s a laptop heading my way!

I think the insolvency one is interesting. For example if you hold stock of perishables, like a nursery for example, then you know your stock has no value, which immediately makes you technically insolvent (Which is OK), but of course then when you look at when you will get revenue again (next year) and the costs to keep going…. Yes you’re probably insolvent. Thats a dilemma that many companies will face. While there’s a lot of complaining about people being laid off immediately, the rules do mean that if a company didn’t shed its cost base with immediate effect then it would be accruing debt it has no clear means to pay back.

@FB-ATB you know you want one 🙂 They’re going pretty fast Im sat next to a big pile ready to leave.

My workplace is asking for volunteers to be furloughed, just over half of the workforce. Spending today weighing up the pro’s and cons for me, some of my colleagues it’s no-brainer due to commuting costs and childcare. I’d still get enough pay to carry on fine but I don’t know whether I could survive the near 24/7 living on my own in a small flat. If there’s not enough volunteers then people will be picked the same way as redundancies would. Got to make a decision by midday Wednesday so a bit of time to mull it over. It’s only now I’ve realised how much time I spend every week outside on my bikes!!

Ben – I know I do, but faced with the drop in income when I get furloughed I won’t be popular!

but faced with the drop in income when I get furloughed I won’t be popular!

Surely that’s offset by the fact you’re not going out and spending money?! I’d jump at the chance to get paid 80% and sit on my arse playing Xbox for a few weeks/months 😂