Taxi Driver Online

Well indeed, and I think HMRC just intended weeding out those who were maybe nearing retirement and/or were part-time, or whatever, and had no intention of returning to whatever trade or business they were conducting.

So in the context of the original requirement to intend to trade in the tax year to 5 April 2021, I think it was fair to say that in spring/summer 2020 it was reasonable to say to a taxi driver that if they didn't intend to work before 5 April 2021 then they were ineligible for the grant.

The difference between 'working' and 'trading' is potentially interesting, though.

For a classic rank driver, for example, I think it's fair to say that they don't have to be working to be trading, if there's zero demand on the streets, say, and going out 'to work' would just cost you money.

However, once things pick up again, there must come a point in time when if a rank driver isn't working, then he isn't trading

The fraud squad have already started chasing dodgy loans, simple way to catch those dodgy applicants which there probably been quite a few from this trade is make them bankrupt and those who are house owners will have to coff it up from the sale of the houses. It has already been stated that they know it is probably going to take years to chase them all but it is going to be done.

There will be a large percentage of Owners/Drivers who rent a property and whos car is on finance who'll possibly have more to gain than lose by defaulting on their loans.

I'm lucky in that I worked during the best of times and that my cars are no longer financed and my mortgage has finished, but you have to feel for those younger drivers struggling with both a Mortgage and Vehicle finance woes during these worse of times, indeed it has been the perfect storm caused by a peak number of hacks and PH's on the roads being walloped by a covid driven lowest customer demand ever.....and with no real return to pre covid levels of demand on the horizon.

Tough times indeed.

I've not spoke to any taxi drivers that had applied for a loan and I didn't even know we were entitled to one, I'm assuming you're talking about the bounce back loan and not the SEISS grant.

Interesting, and sort of similar down here in that very few drivers I know locally applied.

Quite why they didn't is a matter for them, but at the time a low interest loan was a no brainer.

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IDFIMH

I was talking about both really, but I was on about repayment of the BBL mostly, but also about honouring the Seiss grant requirement of intending to continue operating during the next year.

4 x SEISS grants and ARG could total £20k+

taxable but not repayable

BBL are loans to be repaid (unless you cease trading and go bankrupt)

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Freedom is never free

https://www.conference-news.co.uk/coron ... out-grants

Sefton only 16.24% of the allocated money paid out

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

I applied on the 1st February .
2 weeks later i was told i was successful and would receive the grant . Im still waiting.

You need to be chasing it up, somethings gone very wrong.

HMRC have just announced the procedure for claiming the fifth and final grant.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-a-gra ... me#history

You will note it's not as straight forward as previous grants, due to the new rules in respect of turnover now, compared to turnover of the last four tax years.

Or so it seems to me.

But it looks like the grant will be paid out later this month, either the 80% or 30% depending on the turnover calculation.

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IDFIMH

Some useful guidance on Martin Lewis's Money saving expert.:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/04/self-employed-help-coronavirus/#fifth


This part bring of particular interest:

"Past SEISS grants and other Covid support should NOT be included. Previous self employment grants don’t count towards your turnover, nor do other Covid support measures including "Eat Out to Help Out" payments, local authority or devolved administration grants."

I've done the maths and my current years Turnover is only around 50% of the 2019 turnover.

I suspect the vast majority of taxi/PH drivers will be down about that number for the 20/21 period compared to previous years.

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IDFIMH

Just got an email saying I can apply for grant 5 on the 30th July.

Email says it will compare 2020/2021 tax year to either 2018/2019 or 2019/2020.

So check your inbox fellas.

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IDFIMH

For anyone getting confused on what HMRC want in terms of turnover, as opposed to what they have been asking for before i.e. profit, they have done a short YouTube video to help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfHgwBqnwfg

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IDFIMH