Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) Grants

Those eligible for the third SEISS grant must make their claim through the Government's website on or before 29 January 2021. There will also be a fourth SEISS grant covering February 2021 to April 2021.

On this page you can find out:

• How the scheme will work
• Eligibility criteria for the scheme
• Preparing to claim your SEISS grant
• How payment from the scheme will work
• What to do if you don't qualify for the scheme
• What to do if you run your own business

How the scheme works

The SEISS grant is a taxable, lump sum for eligible self-employed workers. The grant amount will be 80% of your average profits over the past three years.

The amount of support you get will be calculated on 80% of your trading profits for November through to January and the maximum grant will be £7,500.

We also recommend that affected self-employed members apply for Universal Credit (UC). Receiving UC will not affect your eligibility for this scheme

Although the Government’s new financial relief scheme for the self-employed contains good news for many of our members – it is vital that no musicians are left to fall through the cracks.

Eligibility criteria for the scheme

You can apply if you’re a self-employed individual or a member of a partnership and you:

• Have submitted your Income Tax Self Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018-19
• Are still earning as a self-employed worker (or would be if it wasn’t for Covid-19) and intend to continue your work
• Earn less than £50,000 a year through your self-employed work
• Make more than half your total taxable income from self-employed work

Preparing to claim your SEISS grant

Tax charity TaxAid recently published an advice document on preparing to claim your SEISS grant, which you can read in full on their website.

Their top line advice is to make sure that you have your:

• Self Assessment UTR (Unique Tax Reference) - if you do not have this, find out how to get your lost UTR
• National Insurance number - if you do not have this, find out how to get your lost National Insurance number
• Bank account number and sort code you want us to pay the grant into (only provide bank account details where a Bacs payment can be accepted)
• Government Gateway user ID and password

How payment from the scheme will work

The amount of support you get will be calculated on 80% of your trading profits for November through to January and the maximum grant will be £7,500.

By profits, they mean your income minus your allowable expenses. This is the same as the trading profits you should have declared on your self-employed tax return. For example, you may have deducted certain costs around the upkeep of your teaching studio from your total income.

If you have less than three years of self-employment history between 2016-2019, it will be calculated on what you earnt 2017-2019, or 2018-2019 as appropriate.

The grant will be paid in a single, taxable lump sum directly into your bank account.

If you don't qualify for the scheme

If it doesn't look like you will qualify for the new relief measures for self-employed musicians, please share you story. Your MU Regional Office is also available to answer specific questions, and you can find further details of alternative sources of finance on our Financial Support Page.

If you run your own business

Self-employed workers running their own businesses and paying themselves a PAYE salary will likely qualify to claim under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, by putting themselves on furlough. For more detail information see the UK Government website.