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UK government unveils aid for self-employed Coronavirus: UK government unveils aid for self-employed
(32 minutes later)
Self-employed to be paid 80% of profits, up to £2,500 a month, to help them cope with coronavirus crisis, UK says Self-employed workers will be able to apply for a grant of up to £2,500 a month to help them cope with the financial impact of coronavirus, the chancellor has announced.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version. The money will be paid in a single lump sum, but will not begin to arrive until the start of June at the earliest.
You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts. Rishi Sunak told the self-employed: "You have not been forgotten."
Plans for 80% wage subsidies for staff kept on by employers were announced last week.
The chancellor spoke after the total number of people in the UK to die with Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, reached 475.
The government had faced criticism for failing to provide support for self-employed and freelance workers in its earlier huge package of economic measures.
Mr Sunak said the steps taken so far were "already making a difference" but it was right to go further "in the economic fight against the coronavirus".
Self-employed people will be able to apply for a grant worth 80% of their average monthly profits over the last three years, up to £2,500 a month.
Mr Sunak said the grants would be available to people across the UK for at least three months, and longer if necessary.
In all, 95% of people who earn most of their income as self-employed would be covered, the chancellor added.
The Coronavirus Self-Employment Income Support scheme is another extraordinary multi-billion pound support, reflecting the brutal economic impact of a shutdown designed to keep the pandemic in check.
It offers some parity with the employee scheme - 80% of profits up to £2,500 a month for three months initially. Unlike the employee scheme, the self-employed can continue to work. It is targeted at up to 3.8 million of the 5 million people registered as self-employed, who earn under £50k. The money, backdated till March, will arrive directly into people's banks accounts from HMRC as a lump sum for all three months, but not until June. The grants will be taxable, and will need to be declared on tax returns by January 2022.
At least half their income needs to have come from self-employment as registered on the 2019-20 tax return filed in January, or averaged over the three previous years. Company owners who pay themselves a dividend are not covered.
In recent days, Treasury ministers appeared to be trying to dampen down expectations, telling MPs it was problematic to establish a fair scheme, and the employee job retention scheme would be the logistical priority. The government wants to set up the scheme to keep employed jobs as the priority first. So the banks will need to be relied on to support many of these self-employed with overdrafts to tide them over till the grant goes in their bank accounts in about 10 weeks' time.
The sting in the tail? The chancellor said he can no longer justify, after things get back to normal, that self-employed people pay less tax than the employed. But that is for another day.