WTC advise whilst self employed & JSA question

Cookieraider_2

I became self employed as a sole trader in July 2012 and earn approx £60 profit per week.
This is a new business, I work from home. I work approx 15-30 hours per week. This time includes paid work and work towards building up the new business ie: Advertising, promoting, ordering, stock purchase, bookkeeping,, cleaning the room, Emailing customers/bookings, research etc etc…Can I include that in my hours? From this I can work out my average and if I can claim WTC? If so how far back do they backdate?

I am married with 2 children at school (one of whom I am in the process for applying for DLA)

My Husband was made redundant (after 7 years employment) in Dec 2012 and so is now claiming Income based Job seekers at £82 a week whilst looking for a permanent job. He has also just registered self-employed in the hope that if no permanent job comes up he can work for himself (he’s a tradesman) and take whatever works comes his way (ie he hasn’t worked since December but does have one week of work this week which he’ll tell his JSA advisor when he go’s tomorrow and obviously won’t get his JSA for that week) But as time go’s by and he tries to build up his business OR if a permanent job comes up hopefully won’t have to claim JSA anymore.

I have also applied for free school meals, council tax benefit (and possibly in the future SMI from 13 wks if needed) But how will it effect these if every now and then he gets work? What’s the protocol/rules for these? Its hard to predict what will happen regarding employment.

He earnt 35k (before deductions) between April 2012- Dec 2012 so we are NOT allowed to claim CTC until April 2013! (we have no savings) :mad:

We’ve gone from never claiming benefits to needing all the help we can get now! Just want to know where we stand really

[Deleted User]

I think you need to consider the new Universal Credit rules. At the moment things are very different. The new rules will mean that you could stand to loose, but on the other hand it may be good for people whos income changes by the month, your benefit will be adjusted on a month by month basis, hence the introduction of monthly reporting on the employer PAYE systems.

Try posting some of your questions 1 by 1, you have a lot to go through and many people will be able to answer at least one of your questions.

Good Luck!