Quidco - mystery shopping

southern_chick

Hi

I'm quite new to this board, sorry if this post is in the wrong place! i have been reading a lot of posts about people doing mystery shopping, using Quidco to make extra money and getting vouchers from website like Amazon, my question is does anyone know if any extra money earned from these things has to be declared to Tax Credits as extra income? i rely on my tax credits and would hate to "mess" them up by earning extra in this way,

thank you in advance for any answers

lil_me

They are all self employed earnings unless you are selling your own second hand items (ie not bought items to sell on for profit) which does not have to be declared. With mystery shopping I think with most companies you are self employed and have to sort out own tax payments etc. Sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.

Gemmzie

Mystery shopping, yes - you have to be registered as self employed, so it may affect it if you earn enough.

Quidco, not too sure on that one, sorry

southern_chick

Thanks for the replies, i thought that may be the case so think i'll have to give it a miss as i'm already on a low wage and rely on my tax credits so cant run the risk of losing any of them and then the "extra" earnings not continuing

cabdy

I'm registered with lots of mystery shopping companies, and 2 of the major ones - GfK and TNS actually treat you as an employee and give you payslips with tax and NI deducted, so there's nothing to worry about.

lil_me

So therefore if you are employed it has to be declared on Tax Credits and will effect the award.

Chrysalis

cabdy wrote:

I'm registered with lots of mystery shopping companies, and 2 of the major ones - GfK and TNS actually treat you as an employee and give you payslips with tax and NI deducted, so there's nothing to worry about.

thanks for the info wanted some mystery shopping companies for my sister as she is interested in it.

puddings_2

I too am signed up for several mystery shopping companies.

If you're just after one comapny to try it out with then you should go for TNS - they have a good website that you can easily pick assignments from, they offer reasonable rates of pay, the TNS staff respond to queries fairly quickly and TNS have a varied selection of clients.

At the other end of the scale, my advice would be to avoid "Gapbuster" - the pay is very poor, the selection process is longwinded, the timeframes are short and rigid, I guess their God-like staff must be on commission as they make unfair decisions no questions asked and refuse to pay for the data received at the slightest opportunity.

grahamliza4

cabdy wrote:

I'm registered with lots of mystery shopping companies, and 2 of the major ones - GfK and TNS actually treat you as an employee and give you payslips with tax and NI deducted, so there's nothing to worry about.

Can you tell me how i go about this please? cheers!