Coronavirus Hub

The Partners and staff at Humphrey & Co hope that all our clients and contacts are keeping well and staying safe. We would like to reassure you that Humphrey & Co continue to support you in this very unsettling time.

How Humphrey & Co are continuing to support our clients and our staff

The offices are currently closed to clients but we are still available via telephone and email. We do have reception staff available in both offices so if you have any books or records to drop off please email our reception team on reception@humph.co.uk to arrange a suitable time and date to drop these off.

Rest assured that our reception team are taking calls as normal and we all have access to our emails so if you have any questions or concerns please either call the office during our office hours of 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday on 01323 730631 or email your usual contact.

We have reviewed our workplace to ensure it is Covid secure, but in light of the current Government guidance our staff are currently working from home. We are arranging with clients to see them remotely via video link using either Zoom or Skype.

All members of our technical team continue to keep abreast of the updates issued by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in relation to financial support and initiatives; key updates with web links can be found in the sections below.

Updated on 6 January 2021

Key dates for Coronavirus Business Support Schemes

For good cash-flow planning it’s important to know when applications for schemes open and close and the postponed payment dates for deferred taxes.

A summary of the key dates are listed below for the following:
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS)
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS)
Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS)
Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS)
Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS)
Job Support Scheme (JSS)
Plus VAT and income tax payments.

Date	Scheme	Action
1 November 2020	CJRS	Extension of the CJRS scheme: for claim periods running to April 2021 the government will pay 80% of wages up to a cap of £2,500 for the hours the employee does not work – employers will pay ER NICs & pension contributions This also applies to employees that are furloughed part-time.
	SEISS	Extension of the SEISS will cover the period from November 2020 to the end of April 2021.
29 January 2021	SEISS	Deadline for claims for the third SEISS grant
31 January 2021	Self Assessment	Deadline for filing electronic self assessment personal tax returns for 2019/20. The deferred POA from 31 July (along with the balancing payment for 2019/20) is now due plus the first POA for 2020/21 is due. These payments can be deferred until January 2022.
	CBILS, CLBILS, BBL & Future Fund	The application window for these loans are open until this date.
15 February 2021	CJRS	Deadline for January 2021 furlough claims
1 March 2021	VAT	Due to the Coronavirus pandemic the domestic reverse charge for VAT relating to certain construction services was postponed, it comes into effect on this date.
15 March 2021	CJRS	Deadline for February 2021 furlough claims
31 March 2021	VAT	The period when the rate of VAT applied on tourism and hospitality related activities was cut from 20% to 5% comes to an end.
	Stamp Duty	No Stamp Duty on the first £500k ends today.
March/April 2021	CBILS & CLBILS	You will need to start repayments of the loan and interest 12 months from the date you took out the loan. Lenders have the ability to extend the length of loans from a maximum of six years to ten years if it will help businesses to repay the loan.
14 April 2021	CJRS	Deadline for March 2021 furlough claims
31 April 2021	CJRS	CJRS ends for all furloughed employees.
April 2021-March 2022	VAT	Deferred VAT bills can be paid back in 11 smaller instalments, interest-free, during the 2021-22 financial year.
14 May 2021	CJRS	Deadline for April 2021 furlough claims
May 2021	BBLS	You will need to start repayments of the loan and interest 12 months from the date you took out the loan. The length of the loan has been extended from six years to ten. Interest-only periods of up to six months and payment holidays will also be available to businesses.
January 2022	Self Assessment	Any payments deferred in 2020/21 are now due

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme Contributions January 2021 - April 2021

The table shows Government contribution, required employer contribution and amount employee receives where the employee is furloughed 100% of the time.

Wage caps are proportional to the hours not worked.

	January 2021	February 2021	March 2021	April 2021
Government contribution: employer NICs and pension contributions	No	No	No	No
Government contribution: wages	80% up to £2,500	80% up to £2,500	80% up to £2,500	80% up to £2,500
Employer contribution: employer NICs and pension contributions	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Employer contribution: wages	-	-	-	-
Employee receives	80% up to £2,500 per month	80% up to £2,500 per month	80% up to £2,500 per month	80% up to £2,500 per month
Claim deadline	15 February 2021	15 March 2021	14 April 2021	14 May 2021

Identify HMRC related scam phone calls, emails and text messages

Please beware of emails and messages pertaining to be from HMRC. Take extra caution at this time and do not click on links or share personal details. Please talk to us if you want to confirm whether any correspondence is genuine.

HMRC have issued a checklist to decide if a suspicious contact is a scam and not a genuine phone call, text message (SMS) or email. For further details please click here.