Is coronavirus affecting your business negatively? The answer to this question seems easy, right?

The reason is that most businesses are affected negatively but not all businesses.

In this blog, I have addressed some of the recently introduced support relief that has been released by the government to support struggling businesses during this tough period. 

1.) The Small business Grant Scheme Tax relief:

The Small Business Grant Scheme is an additional funding scheme that has been provided to support small business owners that have been affected by COVID-19.  

This funding is provided through the local authorities where your business trades.

 Conditions to qualify for the relief:

• You must be business trading in the UK
• Your business must already pay little or no business rates because of the Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR) and the Rural Rate Relief (RRR).
• This grant is to cover the ongoing business cost for eligible businesses.
• It’s tapered at £10,000.
• Your business must occupy a building.

How to claim this tax relief?

To claim this relief, the revenue has stated we should do nothing.

This is because the local authorities where your business is trading have your contact details.

Therefore, they will be contacting business early this following week.

However, if you are eligible for this relief and you still haven’t received any communications from your local authorities after 2 weeks, it would probably be a good idea to contact them yourself.

2.) The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme tax relief.

Another tax relief is the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

This relief is given to support businesses that have furloughed employees.

This simply means that these employees are at the risk of being laid off or sacked because their employers cannot pay their wages as a result of this pandemic’s effect on their business. 

The following are the conditions that must be met to be eligible for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme :

• Your business must be one that is trading in the United Kingdom.
• The HMRC might request for business UTR numbers Employee reference numbers e.tc. as they would want to believe that these employees’ wages would have been declared vis PAYE real-time declarations.
• HMRC are working very hard to set up an online portal that would be used to make this claim.
• The employers would have to declare to HMRC the employees that are furloughed 
• The employers would have to notify their employees of their new positions as furlong employees.
• They would have to confirm if they can change the contracts of these employees under their employment contract.

 How much is the tax relief given to the employers?

The Chancellor has revealed that they would reimburse 80% of furloughed workers’ wage costs.

The limit for these wage costs is £2500 per employee per month.

How to access this tax relief?

The revenue has stated that they are currently working on a new online portal where their employers can input details of employees that are affected.

These monies would be reimbursed through the system for reimbursement and this could be available from next week. 

3. Deffreing of Vat and income tax payments to HMRC.

This relief is to support businesses going through a cash flow situation due to the Coronavirus.

For VAT returns submitted between March 20, 2020, to June 30 2020, the business owners could defer these payments for 3 months without incurring penalties or interest for late payment.

Another support that was introduced during the budget is THE HMRC dedicated helpline Time to Pay offer to support business owners and individuals struggling with outstanding tax liabilities due to COVID-19.

For Self-employed people, the payment on account that is normally made at the end of July is deferred to January 2021.

How to claim this tax relief.

All businesses in the U.K are eligible and it is an automatic relief that requires no application.

The business owners would be given up to the end of the 2020 /2021 tax year to ap all outstanding liability

No penalties or interest for late payment will be charged in the deferral period.

OTHER RELIEFS WERE INTRODUCED TO SUPPORT BUSINESS AT THIS TIME.

• Business rates holidays for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses.
• Cash grants for up to £25,000 for businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors.
• Statutory Sick pay relief package for small-medium enterprise.
• The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan scheme offers loans up to 5 million pounds.
• A new lending facility from the Bank of England o support liquidity among larger organisations.

Conclusion on tax relief

There is a lot of support for businesses during these trying times.

To check if you qualify for any of them you can click or if you need more support, kindly contact