Coronavirus update
For the latest on Government support for business, please follow this link
Please be wary of using social media to inform you of business support, as there are far too many armchair experts out there, and a lot of the support is dependent on specific circumstances.
At the moment you will be getting information as soon as we do, however, there is very little detail to go with the headlines, and our information network slowly fills in the details as it becomes known. If you are unsure about anything in the government support package, please feel free to get in touch with us to discuss things further.
This is the current support:
- 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 £15,000 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
Please take care with some of the support headlines – the devil is in the detail: e.g. you may not be eligible for some things if you are a director of a company; you may not pay staff unless they are actually laid off and not working at all (furloughed) – and there are also legal issues to ensure that you carry out the process correctly. For the detail, please review the information in the link above (which will be kept up to date by the government), and then call / email us if you need further clarification or assistance.
VAT is the only tax that has been deferred. The VAT return is still due on time and the VAT liability will still be due, but not until April next year (for VAT due from now until June). Other taxes are still due, but if you want to keep cash in the business, please make use of the time to pay facility offered by HMRC. The July income tax payment on account has also been deferred, but only for the self-employed (not company directors)
The loan scheme still depends on whether or not the business has a viable proposition regardless of the current crisis – and a personal guarantee will probably be required (regardless of the government guarantee). This will also depend on which bank you apply to.
We are hoping that there will be announcement soon from the government regarding self-employed, as very little has come out so far to help this group. Please bear in mind that if you are a company director, the rules may be different.
In these difficult and unprecedented times, rest assured that we are here to help where we can and we are trying to keep some sort of normality regarding your business affairs. Please get in touch for any help and support we can offer.