Coronavirus - support for business

Further to my last email, CIPHE has been seeking some further advice for members and, although we are still awaiting full clarification about the details of the government support to businesses, we do have a few more details, as follows:

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

• We now understand that the amount of government support will be the lower of 80% of employee salary or £2,500 plus employer's national insurance and minimum employer pension contributions. Previously it was assumed that the £2,500 included national insurance and pension contributions, but it now appears that they will be in addition to this amount.
• Salaries of Limited Company Directors should be covered under this scheme, but dividends will not.

Deferring VAT and Payments

• The government have now advised businesses that pay their VAT liability by direct debit, to cancel it as soon as possible, if they wish to take advantage of the deferral relief. It seems that HMRC’s systems will automatically collect the VAT direct debit as normal and that they will not be able to suspend collections in time. Obviously, the direct debit will then have to be reinstated in the future.

Business Interruption Loan Scheme

• This scheme is up and running from Monday 30 March, which means that the banks will now start reviewing cases.
• We have received some feedback from the banks who say that although the scheme is government backed, the support is capped and so the banks will still take on some of the risk. Therefore, all applications will be subject to approval from the banks’ credit review teams and this is by no means guaranteed.
• Most banks will prioritise their own customers first and so it is advised to apply to your current bank.
• This scheme is expected to be very popular and so the advice is to apply quickly. In the short term it is likely to be quicker / easier to get repayment holidays on existing finance.
• It also seems that successful applications will need to include all relevant management information (previous accounts, up to date management accounts and future cash flow projections – a difficult thing to predict at the moment).

I will update you as more information becomes available. If you have any queries in the meantime, please let me know.

Sincerely

Kevin Wellman Eng Tech FCGI FCIPHE RP MIoD CEO, (kevinw@ciphe.org.uk)