Iset out below some of the relevant points from the financial assistance package announced by Boris Johnson & Rishi Sunak last night and last week in the Budget.
With all these announcements the devil is in the detail and not much specific practical information is available as yet.
Although these may be superseded by the next daily announcement from Mr Johnson some of the Key announcements are worth considering;
Businesses who pay Business Rates (or would do if they did not receive Small Business Rates Relief) should receive a grant of between £10000 & £25000, depending on their business sector. Retail and leisure businesses with a ‘Rateable Value’ of less than £51000 will receive grants towards the higher end of this scale.
Questions and thoughts …
What relief is to be given to be given to businesses who operate from home?
Are these grants taxable?
What relief will be offered to people who pay rent rather than a mortgage?
No one is saying yet but as they replace trading income they could well be. HMRC are suspending the implementation of the new IR35 rules from April 2020 to April 2021.
Businesses in the retail, leisure and hospitality sector with a ‘Rateable Value’ of less than £51000 will pay no rates for the next year.
There will be access for companies to apply for State backed business interruption loans at zero interest for the first 6 months.
A 3 month residential mortgage payment holiday to assist cash flow, but this is just a delayed payment i.e. The interest and the debt are still there.
Firms with less than 250 staff will be refunded staff sick pay payments for 2 weeks.
Self employed people will receive the equivalent of SSP. If you are self employed, what help is £94.25 per week if the average wage is approximately £25000 per annum?
Andrew.