Taxi Driver Online

Interesting - the official HMRC stuff definitely reads like it's now over the four years and includes the newest tax return:


Only thing I can think of is that it says *up to* 4 years' of submitted tax returns, so I suppose that leaves open the possibility that 2019/20 isn't included.

But no explanation as to why that might be, or why they say it might mean your grant could be higher or lower than the previous amounts.

Not that it was going to make a huge difference to me anyway, and unless anyone had hugely different profits in 2019/20 to the previous years then it wasn't going to make a huge amount of difference to them either.

But at least if anyone did suffer a significant drop in 2019/20 then hopefully that won't be taken into account and mean their grant would be a good bit lower than the last one, but since we don't know how HMRC are doing it then no way of knowing for certain either way.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-a-gra ... ort-scheme

If you started trading in 2019 you would not have submitted a tax return until January this year so you could not claim a grant. It has now been extended to include the 2019/2020 tax return that was submitted by the end of January this year so that these people can now be included in the grant scheme.
Simple really.

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Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

Simple indeed, but obviously what I quoted above wasn't including the newly self-employed, because if you're claiming for the first time then the earlier three years can't be relevant.

But for straightforward cases any reputable source I've read has been assuming that the average would now be taken over the four years for straightforward cases like taxi drivers who have been trading for some time. For example:


If you made a loss in one year, or were not required to file a tax return one year for whatever reason, then it's a wee bit more complicated.

But for those who claimed the first three grants based on three years of trading profits then obviously MSE thinks 2019/20 will be included in the average for the fourth grant to be paid shortly. Which I'm assuming is the case with Sussex, but now he's saying his grant is just the same after all.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/ ... ronavirus/

Just had a relook and I was wrong, the amounts do differ but there was only £20 in it which made me assume it was the same.

So the fourth grant for drivers that have received the previous grants will be based on four years.

Sorry for the bum steer.

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IDFIMH

Bottom line is that your profit could be several thousand pounds less for your tax return submitted this year, and you'd only lose a couple of hundred quid off the grant.

If your latest profits are broadly similar to the previous years, then your grant will be broadly similar to the previous two 80% grants.

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IDFIMH

Latest grant is simply averaging your profits over the past four years rather than three, so unless your fourth year profit is hugely different then it won't make a huge difference to the grant.

Just applied for mine and it was less than last time but I'm guessing thats because for the first time I transferred my marriage allowance to my wife and because of that my 2019/20 personal income went down....got it in the one hand and gave it back in the other.

Don't think that should make any difference. It's your taxable profit before personal allowances that's used to calculate the grant, so don't think the married allowance should make any difference.

Roughly speaking, I suspect that for most drivers, for every £100 they lose in the fourth grant as compared to the last one, they'll have been down £2k in profits for 2019/20 compared to the previous average.

So if your 2019/20 profits are £1k down compared to your previous average you'll lose £50 in grants, if £2k down you'll lose £100 etc. Ditto an increase in profits.

Maybe, but my calculations using 2019/20 tax year figure my Seiss should have gone up by a few quid not down....anyhoos, i'm very grateful for what HMRC is giving me and it's not far off the last amount and i'm in no mood to seek to bite the hand that feeds me.

Lockdown did not start until 23rg March 2020. it would depend when your tax year ended. ours is March 31st but some people run different tax years. we started to see a downturn in trade from the start of March 2020. Up until then we were seeing an increase in revenue from the same period in 2019.

_________________
Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

Indeed, I maybe shouldn't have used the word 'lockdown' in the strict sense but, for example, things here had largely closed down well before the official lockdown date, particularly as we're very dependent on the university at that time of year, and I think students had been advised to go home early March.

And I think our early part of the year had been disrupted because of Covid, since we're very dependent on people travelling internationally, but that was subdued even from January, I think, because of Covid. Of course, at that time we thought it was more of a Sars/bird flu type thing that wouldn't have quite the impact that it had, but it certainly did seem to dampen the tourism/travel market early in the year, at least as I recall it now.

Anyway, not that it had a huge impact until March or so, and not that there's much in the way of tourism here in February/March anyway. At that time it's mainly students here, but usually get one or two non-students per shift. But I recall, around February, three shifts in a row when it was 100% students, which I put down to Covid and the effect on travel etc, but of course didn't realise the enormity of it all at that time.

But you're right in that its impact on profits wouldn't be particularly significant for the 2019/20 tax year, and even less significant as regards including that tax year in the latest SEISS grant calculations, because it's an average over four years, so a few weeks impact at the end isn't going to make a huge difference.

In fact, for many it won't impact on the grant at all - my year end is 30 November 2019, thus before Covid was even discovered in Wuhan.

And, obviously, the latest anyone's figures could end for that tax year would be 5 April 2020, so just a couple of weeks of proper lockdown at worst, so not a huge deal over one year, never mind the four years considered for the SEISS grants.

Of course, the tax year ends on 5 April, but if you prepare accounts then your tax liability for that year is based on the financial year when your accounts end in the tax year, so that could be anytime during the tax year, thus your tax payable will be based on your profits that might partly arise in the previous tax year. So my 2019/20 tax payable is based on my financial year to 30 November 2019. So my 2019/20 tax payable is partly dependent on profits arising during the financial year starting 1 December 2018, thus profits made during the previous 2018/19 tax year

I think some even prepare their accounts to the year ended 5 April, thus that coincides exactly with the tax year, but think most people will prepare their accounts to the end of a calander month, and obviously 31 March will be quite common because it's the closest month end to the end of the tax year

People might use another year end for tax planning reasons. Reason mine is 30 November is simply because when I jockeyed for someone his year end was 30 November, for reasons I don't know, and my own figures were just based on his accounts, so I just continued with the 30 November year end when I got my own motor