Links and Advice

ThePostman

Active Member
There's a lot of misleading information about at the moment. Thought it might be helpful to provide some advice and links to relevant websites for those seeking answers. I've ripped the first part of this from MyBuilder and then added a few links.

Accessing benefits
The government has made it easier to access Universal Credit and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
You’ll be eligible to claim ESA if you’re self-employed but unable to work and have at least two years of National Insurance contributions, and it will pay up to £73 a week, provided you don’t have a private pension worth more than £85 a week. You’ll be able to claim from the first day of sickness rather than the eighth, as before, and be able to backdate claims to 13th March. You can apply by calling Jobcentre Plus or online.
The minimum income floor for Universal Credit is also being removed for the time being. If you’ve been running your business for a year or more, the government works out your claim based on your average earnings - if you earned over a certain amount, you would receive less credit. Removing this minimum income floor means some claimants will get extra money to make up lost earnings.
The Universal Credit standard allowance will also be increased for the next 12 months by £1,000 a year.

Help with personal finances
if you’re concerned about paying your mortgage or keeping up with loan repayments, contact your lender as soon as possible - the government has said that lenders will allow three-month “mortgage holidays” where you won’t have to pay your mortgage, with the sum added to the rest of your term. This won’t affect your credit score. Banks are also open to waiving fees for missed payments and cutting charges for accessing savings in fixed-term accounts.
There will also be a £500m Hardship Fund to support people with council tax, distributed by local authorities.
At the moment, no specific help has been offered for renters, though the government has said it will bring forward laws that will protect private renters from eviction.
Tax advice
If you're self-employed, your next self-assessment payments will be deferred until January 2021.
The next quarter of VAT payments is also being deferred to help businesses retain staff. No businesses will have to pay VAT from not until the middle of June, and you'll have until the end of the financial year to repay those bills.
The government has set up a dedicated helpline for self-employed people and businesses. Based on your current circumstances, they may be able to assist with setting up installment plans for payments, suspending debt collection and cancelling penalties. The helpline will be open from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday, and 8am to 4pm on Saturdays, with 2,000 call handlers available. You can reach it on 0800 0159 559.


If you’re an employer
If you do run your own company with salaried employees, the government has announced that you’ll be able to reclaim Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) from the government - up to two weeks for each employee taking sick leave due to COVID-19. The government has also announced that it will provide grants to cover up to 80% of the salary of retained workers, up to a value of £2,500 a month.

If you have a business property
If you run your trade business from an office or workshop and claim Small Business Rate Relief or Rural Rate Relief, new funding will be available to local authorities, giving a £10,000 grant to help meet ongoing business costs. Businesses in some sectors such as hospitality and retail will be given a business rate holiday and access to larger grants, but at the moment this will not apply to trade businesses.






 
Vitriol, Us? Nay lad, just what passes for a bit of joshing and truth telling.
They have absolutely no idea how to compensate us because they think we are such a sneaky tax avoiding, income hiding bunch, who have been hiding away monies from the Govt for years, and have more schemes than Arthur Daly.
And if you told the politicians and civil servants of today what we really earn they wouldn't believe you, because it couldn't possibly be true that we are able to live on so little compared to them. ( actually happened for my parents with the HMRC)
 
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