The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) grants are all subject to income tax and self-employed National Insurance contributions. On 19 June 2021, HMRC started to automatically correct 2020-21 self-assessment tax returns, where the information reported on SEISS grants does not match their records.

HMRC will issue a revised SA302 to those that are affected by the autocorrections. Returns received prior to 19 June are being corrected manually by HMRC so may take longer to process.

Reporting SEISS grants in tax returns

All of the first three SEISS grants must be included on the 2020-21 return.

SEISS grants should only be reported in the following boxes

  • Box 70.1 on the Self Employment (Full) page of the tax return;
  • Box 27.1 on the Self Employment (Short) page of the tax return;
  • Box 9.1 of the partnership supplementary pages of the tax return; and
  • Box 3.10A of the SA200 (Short) tax return.

In addition, there is a further box on the SA100 on page TR8 to make a declaration that coronavirus support payments (including SEISS) have been included as taxable income when calculating profits.

If you have incorrectly claimed one or more of the first three SEISS grants and you have yet to inform HMRC, then you can do so on page TR5 on the SA100. Do not include any SEISS grants that HMRC already know you should not have claimed.

If M+A Partners prepares your tax return, please advise us of any SEISS grants you have claimed when completing the Self-Assessment Checklist so that we can ensure your tax return is complete and correct.

Corrections to self-assessment tax returns

Adjustments as a result of HMRC’s autocorrections include SEISS grants that

Were reported in the return but in the wrong box: accept the correction and amend the return to remove the grant from where it was incorrectly entered;

Do not match HMRC’s records: check against your records and then either accept or dispute the correction; or

Were omitted from the return: accept the correction if the SEISS figure is correct or contact HMRC to dispute the amount of the correction.

SEISS pre-claim checks

The same pre-claim checks that were carried out ahead of the fourth grant opening, will also be performed ahead of the fifth.

HMRC will be contacting up to 27,000 potentially eligible claimants who started trading in 2019-20. They will be contacted on the number provided in their 2019-20 Self-Assessment tax return to verify their identity and business activity.

Full guidance on applying for the fifth SEISS grant is expected by the end of June 2021.