Self-employment Income Support Scheme

(asked on 19th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, what recent estimate he has made of the number of women whose average income calculation has been reduced by maternity leave taken in the previous three tax years.


Answered by
Jesse Norman Portrait
Jesse Norman
This question was answered on 2nd June 2020

Eligibility for the SEISS and the size of the grant paid out is based on information provided to HMRC on self-assessment returns. Self-assessment returns do not include information on breaks in trade, such as the dates or the reasons. HMRC do not know why an individual’s profits may have dropped from self-assessment returns. As a result, a precise estimate relating to the impact of maternity leave is not available. However, the SEISS grant is calculated based on average profits between 2016/17 and 2018/19. This mitigates any periods of reduced earnings which all self-employed individuals may experience.

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