Covid-19 has had a big impact. Big corporations and even multi-millionaire companies faced a setback. Packages were announced.
The Chancellor himself set out a package of temporary, timely and targeted measures to support public services, people, and businesses through this period of disruption caused by COVID-19.
This includes a package of measures to support businesses including:
- 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 businesses in receipt of small business rate relief or rural rate relief.
- It also covers a 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 offers loans of up to £5 million for SMEs through the British Business Bank.
- A new lending facility from the Bank of England helped support liquidity among larger firms. This, as a result, helped them bridge coronavirus disruption for cash flows through loans.
- Don’t forget to check out the HMRC Time To Pay Scheme.
Support for businesses through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
Due to the corona retention scheme, all UK employers access support to continue paying part of their employees’ salaries for those employees that would otherwise have been laid off during this crisis.
Eligibility
- All UK businesses are eligible.
How to access the scheme
You will need to:
- Designate affected employees as ‘furloughed workers,’. Notify your employees of this change. Change the status of employees remaining subject to existing employment law. Also, consider negotiation according to the employment contract.
- Submit information to HMRC about the employees. These are furloughed and earn through a new online portal (HMRC will set out further details on the information required)
HMRC will reimburse 80% of furloughed workers’ wage costs. That’s a cap of £2,500 per month. HMRC has already set up a system for reimbursement. Existing systems are not set up to facilitate payments to employers.
If your business needs short term cash flow support, you may be eligible for a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan.
Support for businesses through deferring VAT and Income Tax payments
We will support businesses by deferring Valued Added Tax (VAT) payments for 3 months. If you’re self-employed, Income Tax payments are also due in July 2020 under the Self-Assessment system will be deferred to January 2021.
How VAT works?
- For VAT, the deferral will apply from 20 March 2020 until 30 June 2020.
Eligibility
- All UK businesses are eligible.
How to access the scheme
This is an automatic offer with no applications required. Businesses will not need to make a VAT payment during this period. Taxpayers will be given until the end of the 2020 to 2021 tax year to pay any liabilities.
These are accumulated during the deferral period. VAT refunds and reclaims will be paid by the government as normal.
Income Tax
For Income Tax Self-Assessment, payments due on the 31 July 2020 will be deferred until the 31 January 2021.
Eligibility
- If you are self-employed you are eligible.
How to access the scheme
This is an automatic offer with no applications required. No penalties or interest for late payment will be charged in the deferral period.
HMRC have also scaled up their Time to Pay offer to all firms and individuals who are in temporary financial distress as a result of Covid-19 and have outstanding tax liabilities.
Support for businesses who are paying sick pay to employees
Talk about new legislation to allow small and medium-sized businesses and employers to reclaim Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) paid for sickness absence due to COVID-19.
The eligibility criteria for the scheme will be as follows:
- This refund will cover up to 2 weeks’ SSP per eligible employee who has been off work because of COVID-19.
- Employers with fewer than 250 employees will be eligible – the size of an employer will be determined by the number of people they employed as of 28 February 2020.
- Employers will be able to reclaim expenditure for any employee who claimed SSP (according to the new eligibility criteria) as a result of COVID-19.
- Employers should maintain records of staff absences and payments of SSP, but employees are not required to provide a GP fit note.
- If evidence is required by an employer, those with symptoms of coronavirus can get an isolation note from NHS 111 online. Those who live with someone that has symptoms can get a note from the NHS website.
- Eligible period for the scheme will commence the day after the regulations on the extension of SSP to those staying at home comes into force.
- The government will work with employers over the coming months to set up the repayment mechanism for employers as soon as possible.
Eligibility
You are eligible for the scheme if:
- Your business is UK based
- Your business is small or medium-sized and employs fewer than 250 employees as of 28 February 2020
How to access the scheme
A rebate scheme is being developed. Further details will be provided in due course once the legalization is passed.
Support for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses that pay business rates holiday for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses
We will introduce a business rates holiday for retail, hospitality, and leisure businesses in England for the 2020 to 2021 tax year.
Businesses that received the retail discount in the 2019 to 2020 tax year will be rebilled by their local authority as soon as possible.
Eligibility
You are eligible for the business rates holiday if:
- Your business is based in England.
- Your business is in the retail, hospitality, and/or leisure sector.
Properties that will benefit from the relief will be occupied hereditaments that are wholly or mainly being used:
- As shops, restaurants, cafes, drinking establishments, cinemas and live music venues.
- For assembly and leisure.
- As hotels, guest & boarding premises, and self-catering accommodation.
How to access the scheme
There is no action for you. This will apply to your next council tax bill in April 2020. However, local authorities may have to reissue your bill automatically to exclude the business rate charge. They will do this as soon as possible.
You can estimate the business rate charge you will no longer have to pay this year using the business rates calculator.
Further guidance for local authorities is available in the expanded retail discount guidance.
Cash grants for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses
The Retail and Hospitality Grant Scheme provides businesses in the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors with a cash grant of up to £25,000 per property.
For businesses in these sectors with a rateable value of under £15,000, they will receive a grant of £10,000.
For businesses with a rateable value of between £15,001 and £51,000 receive a grant of £25,000.
Eligibility
You are eligible for the grant if:
- Your business is based in England.
- Your business is in the retail, hospitality, and/or leisure sector.
Properties that will benefit from the relief will be occupied hereditaments that are wholly or mainly being used:
- These are used as shops, restaurants, cafes, drinking establishments, cinemas, and live music venues.
- For assembly and leisure.
- As hotels, guest and boarding premises, and self-catering accommodation.
How to access the scheme
You don’t need to do anything. Your local authority will write to you if you are eligible for this grant.
Guidance for local authorities on the scheme will be provided shortly.
Any inquiries on eligibility for, or provision of, the reliefs and grants should be directed to the relevant local authority. Find your local authority.
Support for nursery businesses that pay business rates
We will introduce a business rates holiday for nurseries in England for the 2020 to 2021 tax year.
Eligibility
You are eligible for the business rates holiday if:
- Your business is based in England
Properties that will benefit from the relief will be hereditaments:
- Occupied by providers on Ofsted’s Early Years Register
- Wholly or mainly used for the provision of the Early Years Foundation Stage
How to access the scheme
There is no action for you. This will apply to your next council tax bill in April 2020. However, local authorities may have to reissue your bill to exclude the business rate charge. They’ll do this as soon as possible.
You can estimate the business rate charge you will no longer have to pay this year using the business rates calculator.
Further guidance for local authorities is available in the nursery discount guidance.
Support for businesses that pay little or no business rates
The government will provide additional Small Business Grant Scheme funding for local authorities to support small businesses that already pay little or no business rates. These are because of small business rate relief (SBBR), rural rate relief (RRR), and tapered relief.
This will provide a one-off grant of £10,000 to eligible businesses to help meet their ongoing business costs.
Eligibility
You are eligible if:
- Your business is based in England
- You’re a small business and already receive SBBR and/or RRR.
- you are a business that occupies a property.
How to access the scheme
You do not need to do anything. Your local authority will write to you if you are eligible for this grant.
Guidance for local authorities on the scheme will be provided shortly.
Any inquiries on eligibility for, or provision of, the reliefs and grants should be directed to the relevant local authority. Find your local authority.
Support for businesses through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme
The new Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme supports SMEs with access to working capital (including loans, overdrafts, invoice finance and asset finance) of up to £5 million in value and for up to 6 years.
The government will pay to cover the first 12 months of interest payments and any lender-levied fees, so smaller businesses will not face any upfront costs and will benefit from lower initial repayments.
The government will provide lenders with a guarantee of 80% on each loan (subject to a per-lender cap on claims) to give lenders further confidence in continuing to provide finance to SMEs.
This scheme is being delivered through commercial lenders, backed by the British Business Bank.
Eligibility
You are eligible for the scheme if:
- your business is UK based, with a turnover of no more than £45 million per year
- your business meets the other British Business Bank eligibility criteria
How to access the scheme
The scheme is now open for applications. To apply, you should talk to your bank or one of the 40 accredited finance providers (not the British Business Bank) as soon as possible, to discuss your business plan. You can find out the latest on the best ways to contact them via their websites.
All major banks are offering this scheme. If you have an existing loan with monthly repayments you may want to ask for a repayment holiday to help with cash flow.
The full rules of the scheme and the list of accredited lenders are available on the British Business Bank website.
Support for larger firms through the COVID-19 Corporate Financing Facility
Under the new Covid-19 Corporate Financing Facility, the Bank of England will buy short term debt from larger companies.
This will support your company if it has been affected by a short-term funding squeeze, and allow you to finance your short-term liabilities.
It will also support corporate finance markets overall and ease the supply of credit to all firms.
Eligibility
- All UK businesses are eligible
How to access the scheme
- The scheme will be available early in the week beginning 23 March 2020.
- We will provide information on how to access the scheme here shortly.
More information is available from the Bank of England.
Support for businesses paying tax: Time to Pay service
All businesses and self-employed people in financial distress, and with outstanding tax liabilities, may be eligible to receive support with their tax affairs through HMRC’s Time To Pay service.
These arrangements are agreed on a case-by-case basis and are tailored to individual circumstances and liabilities.
Eligibility
You are eligible if your business:
- pays tax to the UK government
- has outstanding tax liabilities
How to access the scheme
If you have missed a tax payment or you might miss your next payment due to COVID-19, please call HMRC’s dedicated helpline: 0800 0159 559. If you’re worried about a future payment, please call us nearer the time.
Insurance
Businesses that have cover for both pandemics and government-ordered closure should be covered, as the government and insurance industry confirmed on 17 March 2020 that advice to avoid pubs, theatres, etc is sufficient to make a claim as long as all other terms and conditions are met.
Insurance policies differ significantly, so businesses are encouraged to check the terms and conditions of their specific policy and contact their providers. Most businesses are unlikely to be covered, as standard business interruption insurance policies are dependent on damage to property and will exclude pandemics.
