Tax and benefits for mystery shopping

kirei

Hi, sorry if this is a silly question but I'm starting up doing self employed work ie mystery shopping visits as I'm on maternity leave (SMP) but I need to claim for benefits when my baby is born. When they ask me about earnings what do I say because it will be different each month / week so how does it work with benefits? ie working tax credit (my partner works full time) / child tax credit? I've never had benefits before but have been told I can claim these when I've got a child and my income is lower due to being on SMP. I know I can't work but I can work as self employed so was going to do mystery shopping etc and register as self employed. It's just the income question I don't know how to answer with regards claiming benefits, can anyone help?

HappyMJ

kirei wrote: »

Hi, sorry if this is a silly question but I'm starting up doing self employed work ie mystery shopping visits as I'm on maternity leave (SMP) but I need to claim for benefits when my baby is born. When they ask me about earnings what do I say because it will be different each month / week so how does it work with benefits? ie working tax credit (my partner works full time) / child tax credit? I've never had benefits before but have been told I can claim these when I've got a child and my income is lower due to being on SMP. I know I can't work but I can work as self employed so was going to do mystery shopping etc and register as self employed. It's just the income question I don't know how to answer with regards claiming benefits, can anyone help?

You need to estimate your net profit. As you haven't done it before I can tell you there isn't generally much profit in it. i.e travel 5 miles one way to a shop will generate £4.50 in deductions for mileage at 45p a mile but the average fee for a job is only about £5. It's great if you are in the area anyway or doing lots of shops in a few hours but generally not worth it otherwise.

It'll give you something to do and I would just declare nil profit for the time being and adjust it later if it appears you will make a profit.

yonk

Pick your companies a bit more and you can earn more than that per job. Personally don't pick up single figure jobs as usually have to travel.