Self funded PhD student with wife & child.

vipvip182

Hi,
My Dad has offered to pay for my tuition fees to pursue a PhD degree. Only tuition fees mind lol. I have to manage the living costs.
I'm married and have one child.
My partner has a small business online with a very low income at the moment, registered as self employed.

If i become full time student, is my partner eligible to claim benefits such as housing benefits, tax credits?

Thank you in advance .

xylophone

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/moneytaxandbenefits/benefitstaxcreditsandothersupport/on_a_low_income/dg_10034876

Dunroamin

Couldn't you do your PhD part time and work alongside it?

BigAunty

To qualify for working tax credits, the adults in your household would have to work 24 hours per week with one doing at least 16 of them.

Self employment is fine but note that the HMRC are launching many investigations of WTC claiming self employed who must now repay back their tax credits because they cannot prove that they've spent the hours they say in renumurative employment. You haven't specified what type of 'online' business your partner runs but here on this forum we've seen e-commerce and ebay sellers targetted.

Otherwise your household may qualify for child tax credits, housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit.

Some students have student loans taken into account for the purposes of means tested benefits, if their course makes them eligible to take one out, even if they choose not to take a loan. I don't know the specific position for Phds - if you are entitled to a loan, then I believe this will be counted. Perhaps you have a student support advisor at your Uni?

Dunroamin

BigAunty wrote: »

To qualify for working tax credits, the adults in your household would have to work 24 hours per week with one doing at least 16 of them.

Self employment is fine but note that the HMRC are launching many investigations of WTC claiming self employed who must now repay back their tax credits because they cannot prove that they've spent the hours they say in renumurative employment. You haven't specified what type of 'online' business your partner runs but here on this forum we've seen e-commerce and ebay sellers targetted.

Otherwise your household may qualify for child tax credits, housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit.

Some students have student loans taken into account for the purposes of means tested benefits, if their course makes them eligible to take one out, even if they choose not to take a loan. I don't know the specific position for Phds - if you are entitled to a loan, then I believe this will be counted. Perhaps you have a student support advisor at your Uni?

There are no student loans for post graduate degrees.

[Deleted User]

Is the department that you plan to take your PhD with in a position to offer you part-time work also - teaching, marking, demonstrating etc

Is there any reason why you cannot apply to the research councils for funding? (fees only, or fees and stipend?) Does the Uni also not offer any fees only and/or stipend funding? Also check with charities, many fund further study depending on the subject area. (all of there are competitive, but if you do not apply, you definitely will not get any funding - if you try, you might)

You are most likely going to be in a position to work part-time in your first, and possibly second year. But it could prove very difficult in your final year - time will be very limited.

If you are self financing, would part-time not be an option, so that you could work along side studying for the duration of the course?

D9

vipvip182

BigAunty wrote: »

To qualify for working tax credits, the adults in your household would have to work 24 hours per week with one doing at least 16 of them.

Self employment is fine but note that the HMRC are launching many investigations of WTC claiming self employed who must now repay back their tax credits because they cannot prove that they've spent the hours they say in renumurative employment. You haven't specified what type of 'online' business your partner runs but here on this forum we've seen e-commerce and ebay sellers targetted.

Otherwise your household may qualify for child tax credits, housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit.

Some students have student loans taken into account for the purposes of means tested benefits, if their course makes them eligible to take one out, even if they choose not to take a loan. I don't know the specific position for Phds - if you are entitled to a loan, then I believe this will be counted. Perhaps you have a student support advisor at your Uni?

Many thanks for your replies everyone.

My wife has just opened an online shop (her own website) i think this would count as e-commerce. She spends her time sourcing products, advertising, running the shop, facebook page and also sells and promotes it on ebay and writing blogs to promote it. How can she prove her hours if she is targeted by HMRC? We have only just claimed WTC as we didnt realise we could. Her business hasnt made any profit yet either. Thanks for your help.

BigAunty

vipvip182 wrote: »

...

My wife has just opened an online shop (her own website) i think this would count as e-commerce. She spends her time sourcing products, advertising, running the shop, facebook page and also sells and promotes it on ebay and writing blogs to promote it. How can she prove her hours if she is targeted by HMRC? We have only just claimed WTC as we didnt realise we could. Her business hasnt made any profit yet either. Thanks for your help.

Regular posters on this forum have started to form the opinion that this is the type of business that the HMRC are targetting - we don't know if it is random compliance checks or some kind of risk flag in the system.

Although this thread does go off topic and get judgemental, there are helpful nuggets of advice in there for the self employed on WTC.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4067609

See if you can unearth other historic threads on the benefit forum relating to HMRC investigations of the self employed receiving tax credits as there are also other hints and tips, including the type of information that the HMRC demand during their checks (off the top of my head, it's things like invoices, quotes, customer records, appointments, advertising/marketing evidence and so forth).

Some posters recommend that a SE WTC claimant should keep a detailed diary/timesheets to break down their time into things like order management, customer meetings, accounts, business related travel and so forth.

Also she should read closely the online HMRC advice on record keeping and what qualifies as business time (it's not enough to be busy, it has to be on renumerative activities with the expectation of payment). The HMRC do provide brief guidance as to what qualifies as an employment activity.

For example, there was one online seller who thought that his live customer support time was sufficient to make up his hours whereas the HMRC thought such a passive activity as waiting for a customer to raise a query was not renumerative work (though to be fair, he only sold 2 products in the tax year but insisted he was at his PC 30 plus hours a week)