Is the Universal credit a double edged sword for self employed with kids?

FBaby

Are you and your wife even actually looking for work or are you happy to just live off tax credits and moan that you might not continue to do so? Starting a business, especially one such as gardening is tough and might take time to bring in a decent wage. One thing that is unlikely to affect the potential to grow your business is working evenings and week-ends as I would think most work is done weekday working hours. Similarly, if your youngest is at school, your wife can work a few hours every day.

So really, you could have it all, concentrate on your business M-F 9 to 5, work a few hours evenings and week-ends, whilst your wife works part-time (or even full-time) during the day.

Of course you will reply that it is not easy to find such jobs, but are you and your wife actually trying?

storytime

FBaby wrote: »

Are you and your wife even actually looking for work or are you happy to just live off tax credits and moan that you might not continue to do so? Starting a business, especially one such as gardening is tough and might take time to bring in a decent wage. One thing that is unlikely to affect the potential to grow your business is working evenings and week-ends as I would think most work is done weekday working hours. Similarly, if your youngest is at school, your wife can work a few hours every day.

So really, you could have it all, concentrate on your business M-F 9 to 5, work a few hours evenings and week-ends, whilst your wife works part-time (or even full-time) during the day.

Of course you will reply that it is not easy to find such jobs, but are you and your wife actually trying?

How can you say the wife should get a part time job? What about child care, teacher training days, school closures due to weather and school holidays with 1 child is bad enough but 3. My husband is self employed and when our 3 children lived at home he worked 12 hour days 6 days a week. Children need one parent in their lives they are not children for long. I tried working twilight hours in a supermarket but the children didn't like me going. When I changed and tried working in the day , trying to find child care for 3 was stressful and expensive. Bringing up children is a job itself. Don't say I shouldn't have had 3 children, I adopted my children and saved the tax payer thousands.

princessdon

storytime wrote: »

How can you say the wife should get a part time job? What about child care, teacher training days, school closures due to weather and school holidays with 1 child is bad enough but 3. My husband is self employed and when our 3 children lived at home he worked 12 hour days 6 days a week. Children need one parent in their lives they are not children for long. I tried working twilight hours in a supermarket but the children didn't like me going. When I changed and tried working in the day , trying to find child care for 3 was stressful and expensive. Bringing up children is a job itself. Don't say I shouldn't have had 3 children, I adopted my children and saved the tax payer thousands.

And what benefits did you claim?

None I suspect bar child benefit.

It only applies to those on benefits, but yes times are changing. If people want a stay at home parent then they need to have income to pay for their partner.

princessdon

Anyway back to ops question.

Assuming your youngest is 5 when uc is in place, you will have dual conditionality. This will be 1 x 35 hours and 1 x part time (looks like this will be 16 hours). The care giver will have social hours as a condition. Eg - they won't be expected to work very early or late.

If you earn enough for both parties then you have no conditionality. If not then one or both of you will need to gain extra income or adhere to conditionality to increase income.

This will involve signing on (both of you), and any other activities they place in your conditionality bracket.

There are positives. Childcare can be claimed for under 16 hours, so if wife works 12 hours can claim childcare (not granted at the moment). It will also be live - so income each month is taken for that month, in seasonal work like yours this should be better.

Working will pay with a £50 (think that figure is right) disregard and less claw back from benefits when pound for pound.

In reality until its live - its hard to give you an accurate answer, but that is an outline.

dktreesea

homeriscool wrote: »

When the Universal Credit ( UC ) comes into force i understand that the self employed will have to work a 35 hour week on at least minimum wage to qualify for any tax credits,which works out as a top line of earnings around £215 per week.

That's not quite right. You have a choice. If you choose not to accept any conditionality, then deeming rules will come into play. You will be deemed to have a profit before tax and NI contributions equivalent to 35 hours a week at the NMW and your wife, once your youngest goes to school, will also be deemed to have an income, equivalent to however many hours she is expected to work, also at the NMW. This is only for the purpose of working out your UC entitlement. It doesn't mean that you would be declaring the money as income to the HMRC. You would still continue to declare your actual income, as per the current situation.

If you accept conditionality, then you continue to receive whatever benefits you would be due under UC, protected to at least the current level for the first 4 years after introduction, and you would both then need to look for work, your wife for however many hours the government decides primary carers of school aged children should work and you for however many hours you are "short" of whatever your current average weekly income works out to, over a month, when divided by the NMW.

The mechanics of how this would work are not completely trasparent. For instance, IDS has made a comment in recent months (I can't find the source on the internet just now) that people on the NMW "would be encouraged to find better paying work", so as to get them to the point where they earn enough from their own efforts not to require any support from the UC.

You could test the effect on your current benefits, by looking at a calculator like the one on turntous, but putting in 35 hours at the NMW for you and , say, 16 hours at the NMW for your wife, and see what happens to your existing award.

dktreesea

Provided the self employed who have a household income from earnings below the full time NMW accept the conditionality "hoops" imposed by the DWP, their benefits will be just the same as for everyone else, the higher of their entitlement under UC or their current entitilement, preserved until 2017.

The ones I think are really in danger from the UC are those who have thriving businesses that already provide their owners with full time work, but whose net profit falls below the FT NMW because they can't afford the capital investment to bring their business' profits up.

Dunroamin

Own_My_Own wrote: »

homeriscool, please ignore the poster quoted below.

The first winter will obviously be the hardest in your line of work. Not many people looking for gardeners at the moment. Hopefully work will pick up in the spring and you will get regular customers, who will need their garden tidied all year.




Cutting imaginary lawns, and trimming imaginary hedges.

If the work is't there right now, then the work isn't there.

Running a business involves more than actually doing the work. The OP ( and anyone in his position) should be spending time advertising his services, looking for new customers and investigating new avenues.

Just settling for cutting a few people's lawns each week isn't what running a business is all about.

Dunroamin

dktreesea wrote: »

Provided the self employed who have a household income from earnings below the full time NMW accept the conditionality "hoops" imposed by the DWP, their benefits will be just the same as for everyone else, the higher of their entitlement under UC or their current entitilement, preserved until 2017.

The ones I think are really in danger from the UC are those who have thriving businesses that already provide their owners with full time work, but whose net profit falls below the FT NMW because they can't afford the capital investment to bring their business' profits up.

Personally, I wouldn't describe any business that pays below NMW as "thriving".

dundeediva

homeriscool wrote: »

so does anyone here have any idea how much i would stand to lose ( or gain ? ) in the new Universal Credit system in my current circumstances.

Nope. There is no reliable calculators out there yet to give you an accurate idea of what your entitlement may be at the time. HOWEVER you will not be changing over to UC until at least April 2014 (thats at the VERY earliest and is highly unlikely) so the fantastic news for you is you can build your business and make substancial earnings well before the changes will take affect and hopefully at that point you will be self supporting.

Lilyann

How do these rules relating to conditionality apply to self employed single parents? I have 3 children between 6 and 13. If I have income ups and downs are my current level of WFTC payments protected for 4 years?

Very grateful for any advice.