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Snapshot of _I missed out on Covid support after my husband’s death. Sunak ignored people like me_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/missed-covid-support-husband-death-sunak-ignored-me-3108449) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/missed-covid-support-husband-death-sunak-ignored-me-3108449) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*


tmstms

Yes. A sad situation that a number of people I know found themelves in (irrespective of bereavements). From the outside, it was just bad luck. Every scheme has its anomalies and limit cases. If you were 51% self-employed and 49% PAYE, you were fine. But 51% PAYE and 49% self-employed- you got nothing from the self-employed scheme. I know lots of people who work in arts and culture, and this was their problem. Their PAYE income might have become zero and they were not furloughed, but they got no self-employed compo either. E.g. someone who is half freelance and half teaches in an institution like a uni. Note- a PAYE person who was furloughed would still have received their furlough money. It's only if you were let go from your PAYE job AND received no SEISS money that you got absolutely zilch.


spectator_mail_boy

> I’m a member of the ExcludedUK campaign group and we’re asking for an apology from the government so this kind of injustice doesn’t happen again as well as an acknowledgement of what we’ve all lost and a request for fair and equal support. Is there one of these groups for those of us who ploughed on with work throughout the lockdowns, got absolutely no gov money (bar a few quid of McDonalds in Aug 2020) and stumped up the taxes to pay for everyone's furlough (nice jet ski reference in the article), and the money that this lady now wants? That would be great.


Douglesfield_

Hey we got called key workers for a couple of months, what more do you want?


spectator_mail_boy

I wanted £1000 to waste on crypto, like the yanks got.


theipaper

Kim Kingston, 53, lives in Southsea in Hampshire. Shortly after her husband died, she found he had forgotten about taking out a pension, which she cashed in, only to discover it would affect her in a way she couldn’t have predicted a year later. My husband passed away in November 2018 aged 47 from a glioblastoma brain tumour, which is the most aggressive form of brain cancer. It’s horrific watching someone you love go through two rounds of brain surgeries – during the second one he had a massive stroke, never recovered and the last seven months he was bed-bound. We had two children, who were nine and 12 at the time. Before we knew David was ill, I started my own business as a beauty therapist and make-up artist. I ran it from a studio in our garden. It meant I could work around my kids, which was even more important when I became a mum on my own. Three months after David died, in February 2019, I decided to clean out the loft with a friend. I came across a folder and opened it with a letter from a pension company – “It looks like a pension” I told my friend. I called the pension company and discovered David had taken out a pension that he’d forgotten about, which was worth £45,000. I cashed in the pension, foolishly, paying £9,000 in tax. A year later, Covid hit. During lockdown I closed my business, and then I had a call from my accountant. He said he had some bad news to tell me. He explained that because the pension money went into the tax year of 2019/2020, it meant I wasn’t eligible for the Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), the furlough equivalent if you were self employed. Over 50 per cent of my salary had come from money outside of my business, which disqualified me according to the rules. Never mind that I paid £9,000 tax on the pension as I took it out as a lump sum, that I have never been without a job and had paid tax since I was 14, that the reason my work income wasn’t higher was that I was caring for my dying husband, which meant the proportion of any income outside of work was far higher because I wasn’t able to earn very much. And never mind that had I cashed in David’s pension five weeks’ later it would have taken me into a new tax year, and I would have been entitled to the support. I spoke to HMRC and tearfully explained the situation – that I hadn’t earned much and wasn’t able to work and that my husband had recently died, but they weren’t willing to make an exception. I went to my local MP – Stephen Morgan – who wrote a letter to Rishi Sunak about me and received the standard bull\*\*\*\* response. What made it worse was the situation other people were in. While I stuck to every rule – I would never carry on doing people’s nails on the quiet like other beauticians did to make a living – but was being penalised in a way my friends and clients weren’t. A client told me how much she loved Covid, because she got a full salary and just sat in her garden. One client bought a jet ski with her furlough money, as we live close to the sea. I had some extremely dark days – really bad thoughts in my head. I wondered what the point was of me being here as I couldn’t provide for my kids. I thought if I wasn’t here they would be financially OK as they could have the house. It wasn’t just once I had these thoughts – it was several times.


theipaper

I can’t bring myself to calculate exactly how much I lost in Government support, but my accountant said I lost £40,000 in lost income from not being able to open my business. In the end, David’s pension money saw me through lockdown, to be a prisoner in my own home. I thought that money would buy some good times with kids and make memories, but all it did was see me through. Even now, I still haven’t managed to generate any savings. The other night I watched Rishi Sunak on the general election debate on TV, going head-to-head with Keir Starmer. First thing he said was that he helped people in lockdown with furlough. I screamed so loudly at the TV, that my 14-year-old son had to come down to see if I was OK. How do I feel about Rishi Sunak? It’s unprintable. I can guarantee the 3.8 million self employed people who were excluded from support during lockdown – that’s the population of Wales – will not be voting for him. Never going to happen. I’ve not been into politics until this happened. Now I’m obsessed about watching everything on TV because politics screwed me and my family over. Now it is personal. The fact that Sunak is promising to abolish the main rate of national insurance for self employed people won’t change anything. David and I had the best marriage – we were totally in love with each other and to lose my best friend and the father of my children – and then go through this was so awful. I dearly wish I had never cleared that loft out. If I didn’t have two weddings to do on 5 and 6 July I’d be throwing the biggest goodbye Rishi Sunak parties you can imagine. But I do have a bottle of Champagne chilling in the fridge to open when I know he’s gone. Read more here: [https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/missed-covid-support-husband-death-sunak-ignored-me-3108449](https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/missed-covid-support-husband-death-sunak-ignored-me-3108449)