Commission Only Income & Payment Order

DippyDog

Hello everyone,

This is my 1st post but I have been reading the forum for the past couple of weeks.

Bankruptcy is a certainty for me and will be filed for in September. However I have a question about how the OR will treat my earnings in relation to a Payment Order.

I work on a self employed commission only basis - sometimes I earn very good commssion, other months I earn nothing. Obviously any income I do earn is gross and I have to make allowance for tax, NI etc.

Could you please give me some idea about how the OR will treat this.

Thank you

IF

Hello DD and welcome, Not a 100% sure of the answer.......so just bumping you up the board.

Best wishes
If...x

DippyDog

Thank you for the welcome - I'm a little unclear as what "bumping" up the board is about but I get the gist of it.

[Deleted User]

Welcome DD
Didn't want you to go unanswered, I'm self employed, BR March and this is what I did -
I got all my accounts up to date (you have a cut off of the BR date, then can start books again the day after BR).
I did SOA for myself and one for DH (not BR) combined them and tried to fill the forms as best I could with my 'approx monthly income' and DH 'contribution' - theres also a section at the end for additional information which I could explain more about my income fluctuation
I had a face to face interview so took all accounts etc with me - this is when you get to go through the forms in detail & you'll be able to explain
I had simple spreadsheet for I&E for each month & P&L for year which was accepted by OR.

If your income is so variable - how do you work out how much your effective income is at the moment to pay your bills? it might help you get an idea of how to present it.

I hope someone else may share how they handled it

lbm

DippyDog

Thanks for that lbm.

Re your question about the income being so variable - I have always been able to cover my essential bills just not the debts (loans and cc's) which I have been carrying from a previous business many years ago. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I should have called it quits on them at that time but have struggled for years to keep up the repayments.

Commission only selling in a competitive market is really difficult and I am scared that if I get a IPA then for the next 3 years 70% of what I earn will just disappear - am I being unrealistic here?

DD

[Deleted User]

DippyDog wrote: »

Thanks for that lbm.

Re your question about the income being so variable - I have always been able to cover my essential bills just not the debts (loans and cc's) which I have been carrying from a previous business many years ago. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I should have called it quits on them at that time but have struggled for years to keep up the repayments.

Commission only selling in a competitive market is really difficult and I am scared that if I get a IPA then for the next 3 years 70% of what I earn will just disappear - am I being unrealistic here?

DD

It's the essential bills that you need to provide information to the OR that you can pay - perhaps if you post your SOA up here using http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html format for MSE then you'll get more specific advice.

As I understand it you only get an IPA on any surplus (after all essentials allowed are taken out) over £99 - which starts at 50% of surplus and goes up depending upon the size of the surplus - so it's not too bad.
Not sure how the OR will want the information from you - My OR asked me to fill in another inc/exp form after 3 months so just put in my books for those months.

lbm