Tax treatment of jury allowances self-employed vs employed

[Deleted User]

I've been unlucky enough to be called for jury service and after reading and rereading the literature, it seems that the self-employed end up worse off than the employed. Can anyone please confirm whether my understanding is correct?

Assuming your loss of earnings is more than the maximum, as an employee you get your £63 per day, with no further tax to pay ie you get £63 to spend.

However, if you're self-employed, the £63 is still paid, but treated as business income ie you might end up with about £45 to spend after tax (20%) and NI (8%).

Have I understood things correctly? Many thanks.

[Deleted User]

oompahloompah wrote: »

Yep, that's right. The amount needs to be entered into your self assessment return as income, but you can deduct expenses such as lunch and mileage - I can't remember the exact amounts but I think it's £5 per day subsistence if you are there the full day, £2 if up to 4 hours, plus 40p per mile; these are entered on the tax return as "allowable expenses".

Thanks - it just seems penal vs the case if I was employed. ie I get the same £63 but then have to pay tax and NI on it, which employees don't.

McKneff

i dont think they get the full 63, i think they get what they have lost in pay, which in effect is what they would have got after their tax and NI had been deducted. I may be wrong but that was my understanding when i did my jury service.

[Deleted User]

McKneff wrote: »

i dont think they get the full 63, i think they get what they have lost in pay, which in effect is what they would have got after their tax and NI had been deducted. I may be wrong but that was my understanding when i did my jury service.

Agreed, but 63 (or whatever it is) is the maximum. So let's say you earn £100 a day, they get 63 in their hand, I get 63 less tax & NI. I think if you earn less than the 63, it should equalise out as you suggest.

I guess my original post was in the hope that someone would tell me that HMRC don't tax jury payments for the self-employed, but guess they do!

McKneff

Yes, i agree with you, its grossly unfair for anyone who is self employed or who earn more than say £70 a day. Could you not ring them up and appeal. I know so many people who have. Or even defer if your work happens to be less in winter (ie builder etc) i havent done jury service (on two occasions) years ago and was lucky to be earning under the daily limit.
Good luck

MrCarrot

Isn't it easy to get out of jury service if you're self-employed? If you earn £100 - £200 a day as self-employed, I'd do everything I could to get out of it. As a self-employed person/director I could simply not afford to take a day off and get behind, lose work and lose money (it'd be even worse if the case lasted for more than a day).