GOV.UK must acknowledge why self-employed agency workers are being denied SEISS! · petition

What the petition asks

Due to stricter IR35 policy that came into play in recent years, staffing agencies across the country deduct tax at source for work carried out by freelancers who would otherwise use their UTR and invoice them.

Many self-employed, therefore, have a mixture of PAYE and Invoiced income.

However, due to the nature of the work, many freelancers have PAYE income on their returns for agencies they've not engaged with since the 18-19 tax year, so they can't be furloughed and if it outweighs their invoiced work, they don't qualify for SEISS either.

When the chancellor talks about the 5% who 'fall through the crack', he refers to people with NO income history.

Currently, thousands of self-employed workers that CAN provide their income history are being denied much-needed support.

Why it was rejected

There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.

You may wish to sign some of these petitions:

Give financial help to agency and zero hour workers during COVID-19 outbreak: Give financial help to agency and zero hour workers during COVID-19 outbreak.

Remove the 50% earnings barrier so all self employed workers to receive support: Remove the 50% earnings barrier so all self employed workers to receive support.

You can find out more about coronavirus and how you can protect yourself and others here:

www.gov.uk/coronavirus
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

The Government has also created an online service to help you find out what you can do if you’re struggling because of coronavirus: https://www.gov.uk/find-coronavirus-support

You can read NHS tips to help if you are worried about coronavirus here: https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-anxiety-tips

You can read impartial analysis of the Government response to coronavirus and policy developments here: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/coronavirus/

You may also be interested to know that because of the large number of petitions that have been started in relation to coronavirus, the Petitions Committee has been questioning the Government about its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Find out more: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/192/the-governments-response-to-coronavirus/

Timeline

14 May 2020	Petition opened for signatures
10 Jul 2020	Rejected by the Petitions Committee