working tax credit

rosie_drew

Hi who can I speak to about working tax credit and will they give me a straight answer. I would like to do beauty at home as well as my gym work but it won't give me the 16 hrs that I need to be eligible for work tax credits. I will be at least 8 hrs down until I build up the business:). Can I claim that time ie working has been spent on emailing and advertising for clients.

falc_2

Rosie I'm not sure but I think you can count that as 'work for which you expect to be paid'. hmrc will say something like 'Be honest now, are you working more than 16 hours a week?'. I take that to mean, are you or are you not working during that time? Marketing, admin and answering the phone are not exactly the same as lounging around in front of the telly. Don't make a fuss about it when you contact hmrc, just keep your claims as simple and clear as you can. Remember they are a mainly automated, irrational system that likes nice answers that fit in boxes! If you spend the extra 8 hours building up your business in a very short time you won't need working tax credit, which is the ideal case scenario!

JuneBow

Everything you do in connection with your business is "working".
This includes travelling, marketing eg talking and meeting prospective clients, researching your market.
If you employed someone to do this you would have to pay them to do it, would you not.
So you are working when you are doing all of these things.
You will soon find out when you are self employed that you are "working" more hours than you are actually being paid for and you will need to factor this into your forecasts.