Guidance

Self-Employment Income Support Scheme – receiving grants you were not entitled to (CC/FS47)

Updated 31 May 2022

This factsheet contains information about assessments and penalties relating to amounts of Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) grants which you were not entitled to receive.

An overclaimed SEISS grant includes any amount of grant which:

• you were not entitled to receive
• was more than the amount HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said you were entitled to when you made your claim

This includes where an amendment to a tax return on or after 3 March 2021 lowers the amount you’re eligible for or causes you to be no longer eligible.

If you need help

If you have any health or personal circumstances that may make it difficult for you to deal with us, please tell the officer who has contacted you. We’ll help you in whatever way we can. For more information, go to www.gov.uk/get-help-hmrc-extra-support

You can also ask someone else to deal with us on your behalf, for example, a professional adviser, friend or relative. We may however still need to talk or write to you directly about some things. If we need to write to you, we’ll send a copy to the person you’ve asked us to deal with. If we need to talk to you, they can be with you when we do, if you prefer.

Telling us about a grant you’ve overclaimed

We understand that mistakes can happen. If you received too much from us, you must pay this back. We’ve made it as easy as possible to pay back any amounts of SEISS grants you’ve received that you were not entitled to.

To find out how to tell HMRC, go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘Tell HMRC and pay back a Self-Employment Income Support Scheme grant’.

If your tax return was amended on or after 3 March 2021

You must tell us if there is an amendment to any of your tax returns on or after 3 March 2021 which either:

• lowers the amount of the fourth or fifth grant you’re eligible for
• causes you to no longer be eligible for the fourth or fifth grant

If your tax return was amended before claiming your fourth or fifth grant, you had to tell us within 90 days of receiving your grant.

If your tax return has been amended after receiving your fourth or fifth grant, you must tell us within 90 days of the amendment.

If your tax return has been amended on or after 3 March 2021, you do not need to tell us if you know that each grant amount is lowered by £100 or less.

If you gave us an incorrect turnover amount in your claim for the fifth grant

When you made your claim for the fifth SEISS grant, you may have been asked to give us your turnover figures so we could work out the amount of your grant.

When you claimed, you may have given us an incorrect turnover amount for:

• the reference year
• the pandemic period
• both the reference year and the pandemic period

If you did this and have received a higher grant amount than you are entitled to, you must tell us.

The ‘reference year’ is the tax year 2019 to 2020, or 2018 to 2019 if that more accurately reflects your normal turnover. The ‘pandemic period’ is a 12-month period from April 2020 to April 2021 which starts on any date from 1 to 6 April 2020.

If you gave us an incorrect turnover amount when you claimed your fifth grant, you do not need to tell us if you know that each grant amount is lowered by £100 or less.

If you gave us the correct turnover amount in your claim for the fifth grant but realise a tax return you have submitted is incorrect

If you now think that a turnover figure in one of your tax returns is not correct, you need to amend your tax return. For example, if it includes other business income or SEISS grants you have received as turnover in a tax return.

You need to tell us within 90 days if you amend a tax return for any year which lowers the amount of grant that you were entitled to. For example, if your trading profits are lower, then the amount of the grant you were entitled to may also be lower.

You do not need to tell us if you know that each grant amount is lowered by £100 or less.

Failure to notify

If you fail to notify us about your overclaimed SEISS grant, we’ll write to you and send you an assessment.

Recovering overpaid amounts if you fail to notify

Our priorities are supporting our customers and tackling deliberate non-compliance and criminal attacks. We’ll recover overclaimed grants and charge penalties to support these priorities. Income Tax becomes chargeable where a person has an overclaimed SEISS grant.

To recover the overpaid amount, we can make a tax assessment. We’ll assess you for the amount that you’ve been overpaid. If we make an assessment, we’ll write to you about it.

You must pay any amount we assess within 30 days of the assessment. We’ll charge interest on any
late payments.

We may also charge you late payment penalties if the amount remains unpaid after the due date.

If you’re worried about making the payment, you can call our Payment Support Service on 0300 200 3835 Monday to Friday, 8am to 4pm. You should still notify us that you’ve been overpaid.

Penalty for not telling us about the Income Tax charge

We may charge you a penalty if you have not told us within the 90-day notification period that you’re chargeable to Income Tax on an overclaimed SEISS grant.

When deciding the amount of any penalty, we’ll take account of whether you knew you were not entitled to some or all of the SEISS grant:

• when you received it
• when it became repayable or chargeable to tax because your circumstances changed
• if you amended your tax returns on or after 3 March 2021, for the fourth or fifth grant

If you knew you were not entitled to your grant and did not tell us within the 90-day notification period, the law treats your failure as ‘deliberate and concealed’. This means we may charge a penalty of up to 100% of the amount of the SEISS grant that you were not entitled to receive or keep.

If you did not know you were not entitled to your grant when you received it, we’ll only charge you a penalty for failing to tell us if you have not repaid the first, second or third grants by 31 January 2022 and the fourth and fifth grants by 31 January 2023.

For more information about how we work out a ‘failure to notify’ penalty, please read CC/FS11a, ‘Penalties for failure to notify on coronavirus support payments’. Go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘CC/FS11a’.

Appeals

If we make an assessment to recover a grant which you were not entitled to, or charge you a penalty, we’ll write and let you know.

We’ll give you the reasons for our decision and tell you the amount of tax or penalty due.

If you do not agree with the decision or the amount due, you can appeal. The letter will tell you how.
You must do this within 30 days from the date of our letter.

You can find out about appeals in factsheet HMRC1, ‘HM Revenue and Customs decisions - what to do if you disagree’. Go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘HMRC1’.

Reporting grants in Self Assessment tax returns

If you’ve repaid the grant or we’ve made an assessment by the date you submit your tax return,
you do not need to include it in your Self Assessment tax return.

If we have not made an assessment or you have not repaid the grant by the date you submit your
tax return, you need to include it in your Self Assessment tax return.

We give more guidance on how to include SEISS grants in the tax return notes and help sheets.

Provisions specific to partners and partnerships

Partners receiving a grant they were not entitled to and retaining the grant

If an individual partner receives a grant they were not entitled to and keeps the entire amount, we’ll assess only that partner on the amount of the grant they are not entitled to.

If the amount is not repaid and we have not issued an assessment, that partner must report the overpaid amount separately in their Self Assessment tax return.

If they fail to notify us of a grant that they were not entitled to within the 90-day notification period, that partner alone will be charged a penalty.

Partners receiving a grant they were not entitled to and paying it over to the partnership

If the amount of grant that the partner was not entitled to is not kept by the individual partner, but instead paid over to the partnership, we may assess any of the partners to collect the amount due as Income Tax. The partners will be jointly and severally liable for the amount assessed.

If a partner has repaid the grant or we have made an assessment by the date they submit their tax return, they do not need to include it in their Self Assessment tax return.

We may assess any partner for the whole amount of a single penalty chargeable for a failure to notify. However, partners are jointly and severally liable to a ‘failure to notify’ penalty charged in relation to
a partnership.

If any partner knew they were not entitled to a grant which was paid into the partnership:

• all other partners are assumed to have known as well
• the ‘failure to notify’ penalty will be calculated using the percentage ranges for ‘deliberate and
  concealed’ behaviour
• any penalty will be based on the amount any of the partners were not entitled to receive and did not repay by the last day of the notification period
• we may still charge a penalty if any of the partners repay the amount of grant not entitled to after the end of the notification period

If none of the other partners knew that the partner receiving the grant was not entitled:

• and the behaviour was ‘deliberate and concealed’, all partners will be jointly and severally liable to a penalty for ‘deliberate and concealed’ behaviour
• and the behaviour was ‘deliberate but not concealed’, all partners will be jointly and severally liable to a penalty for ‘deliberate but not concealed’ behaviour

We will not charge a ‘failure to notify’ penalty if any of the partners repays the amount of grant subject to the 100% tax charge by:

• 31 January 2022 for the first, second and third grants
• 31 January 2023 for the fourth and fifth grants

Any partner may appeal against a ‘failure to notify’ penalty on behalf of the other members of
the partnership.

More information

This factsheet is one of a series. For the full list, go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘Compliance
checks factsheets’.

Our privacy notice sets out the standards you can expect from us when we ask for information or hold information about you. Go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘HMRC Privacy Notice’.

If you’re unhappy with our service, tell the person or office you’ve been dealing with. They’ll try to put things right. If you’re still not happy, they’ll tell you how to make a formal complaint.