The self-employed excluded from the coronavirus rescue

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Chancellor’s coronavirus rescue plan for the British economy has been bold and big, but one important part of the workforce feels somewhat hard done by.

A chunk of the self-employed have been excluded from Rishi Sunak’s support in a way that employees have not.

More than 9million employees are having 80 per cent of their wages up to £2,500 a month paid by the taxpayer under the furlough scheme, with no limits barring high earners from help.

In contrast, anyone who is self-employed and has made more than £50,000 in recent years gets no help whatsoever.

Those hit by the £50,000 cap are not the limited company directors who can pay themselves in dividends, they are sole traders paying national insurance and income tax in full on their earnings.

At a time when the government is throwing hundreds of billions of pounds at the coronavirus crash to support people and boost the chances of recovery, is it fair to exclude this group of the self-employed?

On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Georgie Frost and Tanya Jefferies look at how this has happened and whether there is any hope left for those affected that things might change.

Tanya also updates listeners on her ground-breaking investigations into widows underpaid state pension, which have seen her win tens of thousands of pounds back for those who got less than they should have.

Simon reveals the best and worst performing funds of the year so far and tries to tackle the question of whether the US stock market can just keep on trucking.

And finally, recent podcasts have featured how Britain has gone mad for hot tubs in lockdown but there is a new hot property in town – the awfully-named ‘shoffice’.

Transcript

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0:22.8	Welcome to This Is Money. I'm Georgie Frost, and alongside editor Simon Lambert. Me today is Pensions and Investments editor Tanya Jeffries. And coming up, why help everyone else, Mr. Chancellor, but leave out the self-employed who paid lots of tax? Simon asked a question that millions, especially limited company directors, are wanting to know. Also today, many middle-aged savers face a poorer retirement as a result of not one but two recessions affecting their best working years. We'll tell you how to
0:28.8	sort your pension out now. Plus, we've an update on the state pension blunder that's affected
0:33.7	thousands of women. We'll take a look at which funds have had a good or bad pandemic
0:38.3	and what's going on between Hargreaves, Lansdowne and Terry Smith. And from hot tubs to
0:43.4	shuffices, what you need to think about before you plan a shed office at the back of your
0:49.9	garden. Don't say we don't cover it all on this pod. Don't forget, you can step to date with all the
0:54.1	latest breaking money news. Just go to ThisisMoney.com.com. UK or download the app. But first,
1:00.1	the government has spent billions on protecting jobs and businesses through the coronavirus
1:04.9	pandemic. We have schemes, loans, payment holidays, more generous benefits. The list goes on.
1:10.4	Yet one group are feeling
1:11.6	more than a little excluded from all this, and that is the self-employed. Now, for those,
1:16.6	there remains a glaring hole in the Chancellor's support schemes. Many will have lost all their
1:21.6	income and been, they are the main breadwinners for their family, yet because they exceed the
1:26.8	£50,000 pound trading profit
1:28.5	limit, pay themselves in dividends or started their business too recently, they get never.
1:34.2	Yes, there is the self-employment income support scheme, of course, which many have access,
1:39.7	but while a higher rate taxpayer can still be furloughed and get at least £2,500 each month,
1:46.8	a self-employed worker who usually makes $50,000 plus gets zero help.
1:53.0	So Simon, you've been looking into this, you've written about this,
1:56.2	I'm actually one of those people in that group, could not possibly access any government help.
2:02.6	Are we likely to get any as we're coming out of lockdown? It seems rather unlikely.
2:09.2	Yes, Georgie. I think that anybody who falls into this self-employed bracket and feels that
	...

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