Universal Credits - Self Employed

justjohn

Agent-47 wrote: »

If it goes through there will be a lot of people quitting selfemployment and going on the dole. Unemplyment will shoot up.

trouble is there are peeps that got kicked off invalidity then regd as SE. there are chancers with low turnover and are blatantly never going to earn an income/ run a successful business.

these guys should be on job seekers.

HappyMJ

Agent-47 wrote: »

OK I get it the true figures should include all those on selfemployment getting loads of tax credit. But its true to say that if they kick all those off working tax credit then they will mostly go on the dole.

and continue to do a little SE on the side...cash in hand...under the table...friends and well known associates only. No income tax, no VAT.

justjohn

Agent-47 wrote: »

OK I get it the true figures should include all those on self employment getting loads of tax credit. But its true to say that if they kick all those off working tax credit then they will mostly go on the dole.

SE and wtc is not for the bums of society. That want to do as little as possible eg. not work...

They need to separate the legit businesses from those seeking an easy life and a free handout. they want this group on the dole so they can be managed.

leveller2911

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Cameron has said he will protect the UK (from the EU) if he has to. He has already proved he will do this when he used his veto to stop the Eurozone from trying to grab London's money to pay for 95% of the Euro bailout.

Just be grateful we don't have Tony (I'll sign anything you want, but what's in it for me) Blair, in charge of the UK now.

Cameron and Bliar are two faces of the same coin.They both lied, remember the Tories promise (before the election)to give the country a referendum of the EU and then said we would have a referendum if there was a "significant" change to the treaty that was a cop out.

I wouldn't give Cameron a slap on the back just yet, wait and see what comes of the EU budget nagotiations.Will he use his veto to stop any increase/freezing of the budget?. Whats the bet he settles for a freeze (which is in fact an increase in the UK contribution) rather than being a real Prime Minister and insisting on a reduction. We have cuts in just about every service we have and yet he will see a "freeze" and a success.

He's done next to nothing to change the CAP or the fishing Quota system but he will defend the "City" and the bankers maybe its because the fishermen don't contribute to party funds.

I think much of what the Condems are doing with regards to changes in the Benefits system are long overdue but to say Cameron will defend the UK in Europe is a bit rich he is just another Political self promoting !!!*hole.

The fact is we have a right to a Referendum, its NOT a gift (promptly fell off the soapbox).

MissMoneypenny

leveller2911 wrote: »

The fact is we have a right to a Referendum, its NOT a gift (promptly fell off the soapbox).

You won't get an arguement from me with that one. We were talking about that at work and all ageed that in these dire economic times, we should be stopping the EUs Free Movement and the EUs Human Rights law.

The EUs free movement is a noble idea to help low skilled EEA citizens and their dependants live in a better country for a higher wage and access to that countries welfare, healthcare and education, but in these desperate times we can't afford to keep doing this.

The strange thing is, Cameron has quickly closed all the UK visas Blair invented/made easier, for the low skilled to get to the UK; closed the '14 years as an undiscoverd illegal in the UK' route to a UK passport and has also altered the other immigration visas i.e.stopping students bringing their dependants with them. It doesn't make sense that he hasn't tackled the EU route too.

BurnleyBob

justjohn wrote: »

SE and wtc is not for the bums of society. That want to do as little as possible eg. not work...

They need to separate the legit businesses from those seeking an easy life and a free handout. they want this group on the dole so they can be managed.

Yes. They know that the Tsunami of self-employed who have appeared isn't primarily down to an outbreak of entrepreneurship but rather as an escape from the Jobcentre.

UC will ensure battalions of them will be heading there though and unless the UK economy improves dramatically then many, if not the majority, will become Workfare-fodder sooner or later which will be great news for multinationals and charities (most of whom are for profit businesses masquerading as charities) as they get access to yet more free labour. The government already manipulate the headline unemployment rate by not including them and will just fiddle that little bit more.

dktreesea

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

At least they will go on the work programmes and pay society back for their welfare payments; instead of just getting 23K welfare (in your example) a year and doing nothing for it.

But they aren't doing nothing. They are self employed, which means they agree not to compete with those seeking a job in the working for someone else jobs market, where there clearly isn't enough work for all those who want it. It's like saying "We'll agree to take the risk that we may end up working for nothing (i.e. a business loss) or some miniscule amount like 20p net profit an hour, and stay out fo the jobs market, provided you, the government, on behalf of the other taxpayers, guarantee us a minimum income. Though I hesitate to call a 5 figure subsidy "minimum".

earthbound_misfit wrote: »

Erm, it already kind of works like that. LHA is the way of working out housing benefit for privae renters. It's based on the cheapest 30% of properties in the area of the size you're entitled to. Eg. a couple with one child would be entitled to a 2-bed property, but would only get enough money for the cheapest 30% of 2-bed properties in the area.
Housing benefit for social tenants is always covered in full by housing benefit - although now the 'bedroom tax' is coming in, some housing benefit will be docked for bedrooms deemed unecessary. (Im in favour of this broadly speaking, but against the ham-fisted way they are implementing it.) It's worth pointing out that in order to get a social property initially, it usually has to be the appropriate size (some are underoccupied from the start due to being hard-to-let or unsuitable for children etc). Also, social rents are usually lower than private rentals (round here some of the 2-bed council flats are cheaper than renting a room privately!)

Mmm. I like the theory of it for private renters, but, where ever you rent, and for whatever rate, even if the LHA is sufficient to cover it, the lack of a co payment means there is every incentive for the housing benefit recipient to get a flat as close to the LHA as possible, rather than looking for something that , if they were to go back to work, or earn a proper non housing subsidised income, they could afford.

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

What about the immigrants who have come here on the UK's job shortages list? We need these people.

I don't like keeping lazy people, full stop.

Perhaps a better system would be to implement a habitual residency test for every welfare payment as some other EU countries have done. i.e in order to claim any welfare payments or council housing at all, the claimants must have worked in the UK for at least 37 hours a week, for the 3 years preceeding their claim. Then limit the number of years they can claim to the numbers of years that have worked full time in the UK. That would then ecourage people to work instead of just expecting to live off the UK taxpayer.

The government are already talking about giving claimants swipe style cards that can only be used at certain places and can't be used for booze and fags.

I quite like the idea of preventing people coming to the UK, including returning UK citizens, from claiming any kind of welfare for the first 3 years. And for people to have to work for three years before they qualify for any help. What better way to ensure that those who choose to be self employed upon arrival in the UK work hard at their business to get it off the ground, rather than just biding their time until they can claim full benefits.

There are countries in the EU - Germany amongst them - that have no minimum wage and only give you welfare top ups if you work. And countries which, except for a particular group of young people, have no housing benefit (Spain). The UK seems very squeamish about doing this kind of thing. Almost as if they would rather let the pound wind it's way down to some third world exchange rate and incur monthly deficits in the billions, rather than risk anyone put out on the street or left destitute with no income. Perhaps that isn't such a bad thing; what's happening in Spain at the moment, with all the evictions, seems inhumane. But at the same time, I wonder how the UK can afford it.

dktreesea

Agent-47 wrote: »

My husband is self employed but not earning that much per hr, even though he works more than 30hrs week.

We are really just living off tax credits, both working and child.

Is it correct that next April all selfemployed will be considered to be earning min wage per hr you do not earn that much?

Yes, for the purposes of calculating any benefit entitlement. They haven't decided on what hours to use yet though. If they take people's declared hours, people will just declare 30 hours a week whatever they actually work, if that's the minimum level of hours they have to have before the DWP will try to "manage" them into employed work for they hours they don't work.

If the deemed income is 30 hours a week for just one person in the family, the effect on the benefits might not be too draconian. The problem is for families who both work in the business, and whose income is now deemed to be 2 x the minimum wage, even at 30 hours a week. As I said earlier in the post, that could be enough to drop people's benefit rake (sorry for the crass work, but it does have a kind of "raking it in" feeling about it, working for not much money and getting massively subsidised as a result) by £15k to £20k per annum. Those families may be better to wind up their businesses and let the DWp have a go at managing them into work.

Good luck to the DWP - I wish them the best of British luck, because a lot of self employed are SE only because they can't get a job in the PAYE workforce.

I foresee large increases in the numbers of unemployed once UC is in full swing. All the marketeers, buskers, Ebayers, Avon ladies, spruikers, people who have turned their hobbies into businesses, in fact, all the people who don't earn very much - I just can't wait to see what kind of magic wand the DWP will have to conjure up to get a few million people into "work that pays well enough to support oneself without recourse to public funds." Oh , the theory is lovely, but can Cameron and Co actually pull it off? Especially after they relocate the poor away from the work centres to places in Northern England where there isn't much work compared to down south.

John_Pierpoint

justjohn wrote: »

Paper rich cash poor = on the breadline

lol

It is very sad watching how it takes at least a generation to kill off a family farming business that has survived since Georgian times.

Step zero be born into a family of more than 2 kids.
Step one choose a "partner" with no capital.
Step two discover that the trophy wife has turned into her indoors and is not even very good at domestic economy, won't muck in on an agricultural enterprise, let alone demonstrate business acumen..
Step three, have more than two kids.
Step four choose parents who linger on in poor health - kept alive by the NHS. They qualify for nothing because of their "wealth".
Step five discover the oldies have die without planning for the tax man's interest in the wealth; what is more they have left equal shares in the enterprise to each of their kids, regardless of commitment, aptitude and interest in the business.
Step six try to finance your own kids through higher education - regardless of airy fairy concepts of life ambitions.
Step seven & subsequent mortgage or sell land just to meet living costs.

That path from young man with prospects to old pensioner living in relative poverty, can result in what has been a wasted CAP subsidised lifetime, as the more successful rationalise the farming industry.

My great great grandfather, went from "farmer (supporting a family of 3 children and) five men and a boy on 130 acres" to entrepreneur in the newly booming "licensed victualler" trade between two census returns. Perhaps he was ahead of the curve.

BurnleyBob

There's a monster thread developing at another forum concerning all aspects of UC for those who might wish to read other opinions about what's been proposed thus far. http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=184612&st=0