Not Applicable

Crumble_Butter

Not Applicable

BigAunty

Do claim your entitlements - households on low income need this support. Any particular reason why your partner won't claim ESA or DLA? Or have they been ported off IB and don't want to claim JSA?

The Turn2us online benefit calculator could assist you to identify if all your extra income from additional employment gets swallowed up by a decrease in HB.

That said, I'm not sure how you could qualify for tax credits anyhow at the moment with a 15 hour per week job anyhow. If you are over 25 and without a disability or dependents, you'd have to work 30 hours to qualify for working tax credits - perhaps you should consider WTC while your business is growing?.

I found that Hackney council has published a good leaflet on their website to explain how they calculate HB from a self-employed income, what expenses they include/exclude from their calculations which may be different from expenses accepted by the HMRC on your tax return. See if your local council publishes info on the type of information they require from the self employed to process HB/council tax discount claims.

You should also look ahead to the Universal Credit system to understand how things may change for your household - the self employed get treated a bit differently there than under the current tax credit system.