Self Employment and benefits help please!!

linziiddles

Hiya peeps.

I was looking for some advice if possible,

My husband was laid off in march when i was on maternity leave, and when i went back to work they announced that they were making redundancies and i decided to start looking for a new job. I found a job in a salon as a nail technician which is my trade, and i got laid off 2 weeks ago. As the woman wasn't able to afford to keep me on.

I have now had to sort out the benefits and everything for me and my husband and the 2 kids, as we have no money coming in at all.

I have been offered in the last week a nail table at a salon down the road from me, as a self employed nail technician at a 20% rental agreement. (the salon owner would take 20% of my earnings as her rent)
The only thing is that i can't decide whether this would work out better for us than finding another employed job. I don't know whether we would still be able to claim for help with the rent, and what would happen with tax credits and stuff. I have never been self employed before, and whilst i think its a great opportunity, i am very nervous at the prospect. I hate being out of work, and my hubby has been trying without much luck to find a job since he got laid off. And so with both of us not working now its very tight money wise, and we hate relying on benefits. My husband wasn't able to claim JSA when i was working as i earned too much, so he has never claimed up untill now.

Anyways, i digress, i'm just wondering if anybody knows if we will still get help with housing and WTC/CTC etc if i was to be self employed. And what would i do with regards to my income from self employment, would my earnings from this tax year from when i was employed be taken into account when i was due to do my tax return? or would that be classed as a separate income?

I'm soooo confused!!

Thanks for your help in advance!

Linzi xxx

steve1980

Remember as self employed the salon owner would have no right to the hours you work, if she does that then you're classed as employed.

linziiddles

steve1980 wrote: »

Remember as self employed the salon owner would have no right to the hours you work, if she does that then you're classed as employed.

Thanks hun, yeah, i would be working as many hours as possible, and would be working the hours that i wanted, its just that i dont know what we would still get help with etc, with just me working we would still need the help with rent etc, im just not sure how i would estimate my earnings for the council etc. i would at least be working 24 hours a week as i know in the new TY thats what we would need to be entitled to tax credits.

its all so confusing, i just dont know where to start.......:eek:

steve1980

Check out http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx this will at least give you an idea.

linziiddles

Thanks ever so much, will check it out now.

Vejovis

yes you would be entitled to WTC, CTC and help with HB presuming your income is going to be low. if you are employed and self employed in the same year they are both taken into account, there is a section on the self employed tax return for employed earnings.

BigAunty

Note that from April onwards, a couple with kids who want to claim WTC must work 24 hours per week to be eligible, with at least one of them working 16 hours of it (up from 16 hours which is the threshold now).

Also, keep your eye on the proposed changes to the benefit system being phased in over the next few years as regards the self-employed. Tax credits will be scrapped and rolled into the Universal Credit system and instead of the emphasis on a threshold by hours worked, they will start treating the self employed as if they earn the National Minimum Wage, so think ahead to how you can grow your role into earning at least the NMW.

Also, as noted before, it's not simply enough for a client company and their sub contractor to say that they are independent, and the sub contractor is self employed. The HMRC are always on the look out for disguised employment (people who really work in regular jobs but claim to be self employed) and their website has a good description of factors to clarify when a person is self employed or employed by a company. Make sure you are truly self employed or if you fail a HMRC investigation, you'll end up owing thousands in PAYE (one of my friends was audited and it was hell).

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/employment-status/index.htm

Hammyman

My missus has a friend who does nails from home for a living. Despite being in a backward Yorkshire market town, she is absolutely swamped out with work.

You are entitled to income based benefits the same as someone unemployed. So thats council tax benefit, housing benefit, tax credits.
You know what you'd charge, you have a rough idea of how busy you will be from your experience within the job and you can work out costs per job. It is only an estimate and when it looks like being wildly wrong you can give them a revised one.

I will say this though. People who have job experience in what they are wanting to do self employed are statistically the likeliest to do well.

Best of luck. It can be a bit scary knowing you are in control of your own fate this much but the rewards are well worth it in the end.