Reporting Covid Support grants on your tax return

Do you know what the requirements are in terms of reporting Covid support grants on your tax return? If not, this very brief summary of the latest information will hopefully help.

As Covid support grants are taxable, if you claimed them they need to be declared on your company tax return (CT600).

If you need to complete a Company Tax Return and have claimed Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) grants, Eat Out to Help Out (EOHO) payments, or any support payments made by local authorities and devolved administrations, you’ll need to report this as income when you calculate your taxable profits.

If a Company Tax Return has already been filed, and coronavirus support grants or payments have not been declared as taxable income, an amended return will need to be submitted.

How to report grants and payments

If you received a CJRS grant and/or an EOHO payment, this will also need to be reported separately in the specific boxes provided on the CT600.

Boxes 471, 472 and 647 will need to be completed with the relevant amounts for the accounting period covered by the return, and boxes 473, 474 and 526 will need to be completed if there were any CJRS or EOHO overpayments.

These boxes were added to the CT600 on 6 April 2021. If you received a CJRS grant, EOHO payment and your return was filed before 6 April 2021, or after that date but without completing the relevant boxes, the return will need to be amended.

If all coronavirus support overpayments were already repaid or have already been assessed before the tax return was filed – and there’s no coronavirus support schemes overpayment remaining due for payment – there’s no need to amend the return. More information on this is available in the Company Tax Return guide.

HMRC will also shortly start to run webinars on the taxability of coronavirus grants and payments for businesses and agents, and will send out more information in due course.

A word about scams

HMRC are urging customers to be careful if they are contacted out of the blue by someone asking for money or personal information. HMRC continue to see high numbers of fraudsters calling, emailing or texting customers claiming to be from HMRC.

If in doubt, HMRC advise you not to reply directly to anything suspicious, but to contact HMRC straight away and search GOV.UK for HMRC scams.

The National Cyber Security Centre has a helpful guide on how to stay secure online and protect yourself or your business against cyber crime, which you can find by searching ‘Cyber Aware’.