Ahead of the fourth round of the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE) has urged the government to look again at support for excluded groups – particularly the newly self-employed.
IPSE has said that since most newly self-employed people will have filed their first full annual tax return by the time of the next grant, there is “no excuse” for government not to include them in the support. Government had originally said this group could not be included because of the risk of fraud with people who had not filed a full annual tax return.
Derek Cribb, CEO of IPSE said, “After numerous policy proposals from us and other organisations, government has still not got support to the 1.5m excluded self-employed. These people have now been almost a year without financial aid. Many are now in spiralling debt and self-employed applications for Universal Credit have risen by over 300%.
“Ahead of the fourth round of SEISS, we urge the government to look again at ours and the other policy proposals to get support to these groups. Last year, government said it could not support the newly self-employed because of the risk of fraud with people who had not filed a full year’s tax return. Most of those newly self-employed who have clung on will now have filed their first full annual tax return. There should therefore be no excuse not to support this group at least.”
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