Self-employed, any entitlements?

welshrarebit_2

Hiya

Could anybody give me any advice please?

my husband has his own business which was doing ok, we are in our second year of business but in the last 6 weeks he has had 2 days work

He has registered with some agencies to do some HGV driving but as yet there is nothing

Does anyone know if we are entitled to any help etc? I am going to head down to our local CAB now to see if there is anything they can advise, but I thought I would look on here if anyone in the same circumstances has had any joy so far.

Thanks for your time

busterkeye

Hi welshrarebit

I'm in the same pan!

Does anyone know if I can claim anything like the Dole (don't know what its called these days) what happens if I go and sign on lets say Monday, then I get 2 days work thurs Fri then nothing for the next week and a half

many thanks buster

niknikm

Hi

Same here, I have a young daughter and a husband that works ft but my Direct Selling business has been drying up of late and I'm not sure if I can get any help as I can still get the odd party here and there.

As my partner is on a good wage we can't get most benefits even though we have a huge mortgage, and since I had my daughter our annual income is down £16,500.

Can I get job seekers allowance? Would I be better off becoming unemployed and giving up the odd work I find?

Any help greatly appreciated x

busterkeye

anyone know of any help out there

welshrarebit_2

I guess not

But its nice to know we're not the only ones out there

I am going to try and get down the CAB tomorrow, if they say anythign helpful I will let you guys know

:beer:

Loopy1

I'm going with my other half to the dole office on Tuesday he was self employed but has not worked since December. We put the application in two weeks ago and have been chasing ever since. They seemed positive on the phone and will talk us through what options we have (if any) but someone else i was speaking to said their other half was not entitled to jobseekers as he was not paying the correct NI?

Lentilsforteaagain

You can claim JSA and just tell them about the odd days or few days work you do, even if it's regular work (eg. 1 or 2 days every week). Alternatively, if the work adds up to 16 hours a week you can claim tax credits (certainly if you have children at home anyway, I'm not sure otherwise).

Another point is ... if you have children at homeandyour husband is self employed, don't under-estimate the amount of hours he works a week. Even if he only goes "out" to work for, say, 8 hours on one day, how much does it add up over the week looking for other contacts/work for his business, book-keeping, doing general odd jobs to keep the business running smoothly (eg. answering the phone or emails or sorting out tools, whatever is needed) - it's not just about the hours he's actually being paid for.

Hope that makes some sense! Good luck, it's all a nightmare at the moment!

busterkeye

many thanks for all your help

welshrarebit_2

So, am I right in thinking that he needs to work 16 hrs per week for us to claim child tax credit? Would this include all the hours hes chasing people for work and invoicing etc etc that you mentioned?

Thanks for the great info, that has been a big help

CAB basically told us to get incontact with CTC to see if we can increase what we currently recieve which is £40/ month! They akso suggested council tac ebebfit, we contact them about that, but its means tested, so not sure what they would say is our limit before they agree we cant afford to pay it!

They also suggested 'signing on', it would seem that if we were happy to sit on our asses and claim they would pay a whole heap more, but we WANT to work! It also came across that because we have a mortgage, that there isnt much help out there!

Its looking bleak

Bielzibub

No, Child Tax Credit is paid based on income, not how many hours you work as CTC payments are now paid when you're unemployed instead of it being part of JSA or IS so it doesn't matter whether you're working or not.

Working Tax Credit is income and hours based and it could've been that they were referring to.

Regarding getting JSA, he would need to phone up HMRC and end his self employment. If you're earning more than £105 a week, he won't get any at all as being self employed, he has been paying Class 2 NI which doesn't count towards contribution based benefit entitlement so would only be eligible for income based. Any income you do get, disregarding £10, is taken off the couples allowance. If you're not working then he'd get the couples rate of £94 odd a week. Mortgage interest payments would kick in after 13 weeks.

In addition to that, there's also council tax benefit as well you can apply for.

busterkeye

lol
CTC, JSA, IS LOL they took me ages to workout what they ment!! I got the HMRC bit though lol