Childcare providers among hundreds of firms not eligible for Government help

They include a childcare provider who previously worked 70 hours a week but whose work and income has completely disappeared. The FSB said she is ineligible because through working long hours her average earnings for the last three years are above the £50,000 cap.

A childminder who only became self-employed in May 2019, and therefore does not have a tax return for 2018/19, has also contacted them.

As Nursery World reported last week, thousands of newly registered childminders around the country feel they are missing out on vital Government support for the self-employed, and fear their businesses will fold in the crisis.

The FSB said it has received more than 500 emails to a hotline it set up to highlight that real-life examples of individuals and businesses that are not covered by the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS).

Businesses set up within the last financial year are not entitled to any support from the scheme, announced by the Chancellor Rishi Sunak. Self-employed trading profits must also be less than £50,000.

The organisation is calling on the Government and HMRC to look urgently at what help can be provided to those who miss out on the income support for self-employed.

They include childcare providers, hair salon owners, dentists, pet-sitters, and people across the creative industries. 

Some are ineligible because they’re only recently self-employed, some because they’re just over the £50,000 trading profits cap.

The Chancellor announced the scheme last month as part of the Government’s financial response to the coronavirus crisis, and it is due to go live in early June. 

Although it will cover around 3.8 million self-employed, those not covered include:

• Directors of limited companies – many of whom are one-person businesses or small employers – who pay themselves through dividends
• Those who have more recently become self-employed and do not have a 2018/19 tax return
• Self-employed above the trading profits cap of £50,000 a year.
• Those whose income from self-employment is below 50% of their earnings

FSB National Chairman Mike Cherry said, ‘The Government’s schemes are generous in their attempt to protect the economy. However, these entrepreneurs have done nothing to warrant being entirely cut out of the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme.

‘The UK economy, society and local communities are going to need as many as possible to be in a position to reactivate their businesses when this public health emergency is over.

‘We have heard directly from hundreds who are not covered by this scheme, and who are frightened and bewildered about the situation they find themselves in.

‘These are real, hard-working people who have built up successful businesses and paid taxes all their lives, who now find themselves facing hardship with little of the current support available for them.’

He added that ‘a significant group’ are many people who are not high earners, and who provide important services, who have paid their taxes over the years as owner directors, or been forced to set up as limited companies because their customers required it.

The FSB said HMRC had not fully recognised the diversity of businesses within these groups, which is why its has shared more than 500 examples of real-life entrepreneurs and their real-life situations.