Advise please on Income Support/Carers Allowance and being Self Employed

marie-20

Hi there,

I was made redundant at the beginning of July as I need to be at home to care for my disabled husband and the company decided that after 2.5 years of working from home it was no longer viable for them . . . . .

Anyway I decided in May/June that I wanted to start trading on Ebay so after researching it all I started to buy stock mid June.

I now receive £55 p/w CA and £14.85 p/w IS and full housing benefit.

I registered with HMRC as SE on 11/07/11 and I have also informed IS & CA. This morning I have received a letter from IS asking me to send a weekly breakdown of sales, purchase and profits from 11/07/11.

My question is does that mean that everything I purchased before 11/07/11 isn't taken into account???

My weekly income will be more than my outgoings most weeks as I buy a bulk lot of stock every 3-4 weeks which would wipe out most of the 'monthly' income.

I have currently spent around £3.5K and have sold around £1.5K leaving me in the red by £2K and I am now concerned that IS won't take this into account and I will loose IS and housing benefit and I won't get much tax credits this year to make it up - around £10 p/w as I have already earnt £9K plus hubbies benefits of £6K.

Also for IS I have to spend under 16 hours p/w on the business so how do I work out the amount of gas, electric, internet, house phone & mobile to claim as expenses?


Thank you for your help and sorry for the rant!

HappyMJ

You can date the purchases made before the 11th as if they were made on the 11th when the business started.