Put Off Going Self Employed As A Writer

dktreesea

Somerset wrote: »

This is a hypothetical response.

Why the above ? If a person can start up any random business but it is always someone else's money on the line ( the govt's/taxpayer's ) why is that a good thing ?

The country may be encouraging self-employment, but 'help' doesn't mean an open-ended cheque.

Really? I disagree. Under the current regime, you could be self employed and run a marginally profitable business - probably one capable of making a much bigger profit, but undercapitalised so unlikely ever to do so - and claim benefits for the rest of your working life.

Tony Blair, when asked this very question (about why should the taxpayer's money be on the line if someone wants to be self employed) said something along the lines of if the alternative was for these people to all be unemployed (so costing the taxpayer anyway), if, in 1,000 businesses, just one of them became an employer of people other than the owner, it was a good thing.

Mmm. Well, he's entitled to his opinion. but I'm glad the deeming rules and the MIF are coming in with UC. Well, if the MIF in its current form survives until UC is in play. There's so much lobbying against it just now.

Somerset

dktreesea wrote: »

Really? I disagree. Under the current regime, you could be self employed and run a marginally profitable business - probably one capable of making a much bigger profit, but undercapitalised so unlikely ever to do so - and claim benefits for the rest of your working life.

As I understand it ( and absolutely could be wrong ) if you work over 16 hours a week in a self-employed capacity, you can receive working tax credit.

From what I read, HMRC are cracking down on these 'scheme's' because they've been manipulated and abused. People set up businesses which made pennies, but complied with the legislation. Hence HMRC are weeding out the non-businesses with the nmw rule. So they will not be able to claim WTC on the back of a non-business for the rest of their life.

If, those individual's in turn have to claim JSA instead, they may indeed still be claiming that benefit for the rest of their life. But they will 'encouraged' to find employment, and their true status will be more transparent.

dktreesea

Somerset wrote: »

As I understand it ( and absolutely could be wrong ) if you work over 16 hours a week in a self-employed capacity, you can receive working tax credit.

From what I read, HMRC are cracking down on these 'scheme's' because they've been manipulated and abused. People set up businesses which made pennies, but complied with the legislation. Hence HMRC are weeding out the non-businesses with the nmw rule. So they will not be able to claim WTC on the back of a non-business for the rest of their life.

If, those individual's in turn have to claim JSA instead, they may indeed still be claiming that benefit for the rest of their life. But they will 'encouraged' to find employment, and their true status will be more transparent.

Just because a business doesn't make very much profit doesn't mean it's not a legitimate business. Some businesses can have quite high fixed overheads relative to the current turnover. It doesn't mean it's not a legitimate business. Yes, HMRC are going after businesses that have very little takings. But all you have to show is that you are running a business with the expectation of making a profit.

And where does "fraud" begin and end? I know a lady who is claiming JSA. She's an office worker who was made redundant. A security guarding job came up. She didn't apply for it. When I asked why not, she said she "couldn't do it". She "doesn't want a job which involves a lot of standing and walking around". Come July she will have been out of work a year. Is it fraud if you accept jsa but don't apply for any and all jobs?

If someone is claiming to work 30 hours a week in their business but not actually doing so, then fair enough, that's fraud. But is it any different to hanging out with your mates while on jsa, when finding a job is meant to be your full time "job"?

neverdespairgirl

dktreesea wrote: »

But if you had a family, both of those profits would have entitled you to some support from the state, even back in 2002, assuming household income from other members didn't preclude this. At that time, wouldn't an income of £6k have qualified you for things like working families tax credit, housing benefit and child benefit? Even for an income of £14k, wouldn't you have been able to claw some of the income tax back through children's tax credits if you had qualified for this rebate?

I'd never have dreamed of trying to claim benefits while I was working. It didn't occur to me, once.

So instead, I worked (rather illicitly) in other ways around my 60-70 hour weeks, got a bit in debt, having used up my previous savings, and just got on with it.

But then, I chose to do A levels, go to uni, do a post-grad degree, then training, get established in work, and not have my son until 2005. All very silly, really.

dktreesea

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I'd never have dreamed of trying to claim benefits while I was working. It didn't occur to me, once.

So instead, I worked (rather illicitly) in other ways around my 60-70 hour weeks, got a bit in debt, having used up my previous savings, and just got on with it.

But then, I chose to do A levels, go to uni, do a post-grad degree, then training, get established in work, and not have my son until 2005. All very silly, really.

I think with the advent of the internet times have changed. In times gone past when I was out of work, I didn't go on the dole. I just didn't know about that kind of thing. If you didn't know anyone on the dole, or who has ever been on the dole, dealing with welfare services is like a blank page. It's like the eskimos, having 16 words for snow, when to me it's all just ....snow I just got another job, usually in a matter of weeks.

Nowadays, thanks to the internet, our horizons have really been broadened. There seems to be much more awareness of one's entitlements, not to mention how to go about getting them, even among working people.

BigAunty

CKhalvashi wrote: »

It's not as simple as this, especially when you're dealing with the arts.

I run a music venture, which whilst it's not as such writing, it's another one of those self-employed industries where some months there's not enough to pay the bills, and some months there's so much money you don't know what to do with.

Last month, we ran a 7 figure profit, whilst most months we still run a loss, depending on exactly what we're doing, how much press

But those types of peaks and troughs sound like many non-arts businesses - the painter/decorator who doesn't get much work over xmas/new year, the gardener with a quiet winter, the courier busy over xmas/new year, the child minder with void periods when some her charges start school and so forth.

dktreesea

BigAunty wrote: »

But those types of peaks and troughs sound like many non-arts businesses - the painter/decorator who doesn't get much work over xmas/new year, the gardener with a quiet winter, the courier busy over xmas/new year, the child minder with void periods when some her charges start school and so forth.

Yes, and if the government, with their plans for the self employed,don't get their act together and go to something like a rolling 12 month profit for the SE, even if they still want the current month's figures reported on time, they are going to be in for quite a shock when people who make at least the minimum wage for the year, but do it over the two months coming up to Christmas, claim for the maximum benefit for the other ten months of the year because that's when they aren't making the minimum wage.

Wouldn't it be ironical if, as a result of these reforms, a lot more self employed people that are not currently eligible for benefits now end up qualifying for UC for most of the year?!

neverdespairgirl

dktreesea wrote: »

I think with the advent of the internet times have changed. In times gone past when I was out of work, I didn't go on the dole. I just didn't know about that kind of thing. If you didn't know anyone on the dole, or who has ever been on the dole, dealing with welfare services is like a blank page. It's like the eskimos, having 16 words for snow, when to me it's all just ....snow I just got another job, usually in a matter of weeks.

Nowadays, thanks to the internet, our horizons have really been broadened. There seems to be much more awareness of one's entitlements, not to mention how to go about getting them, even among working people.

I've had email since 1996, internet access since 1997, when I was at university, and started pupillage in September 2001. I was fully-qualified in October 2002.

dktreesea

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I've had email since 1996, internet access since 1997, when I was at university, and started pupillage in September 2001. I was fully-qualified in October 2002.

So you are in your late 20s, early 30s? Computing when I was at uni meant writing programs in Fortran, creating punch cards for the code and then waiting overnight for the programs to be run on an IBM mainframe. Email was in its infancy. The internet as we know it today didn't exist.

Nowadays, if I want to know about Caracas/hamstring injury/the kind of weather they have in the south west of England/jobs on offer in Kent/the full content of the last budget delivered by the government, I can probably look it all up in ten minutes. In those days getting that info would have meant hours in a library, poring over newspapers, and ordering the budget papers from the government printer. Days to get the information that now could be at least accessed in less than ten minutes, even if it would still take ages to read.

I've had teenagers say things to me like "Did you really have no internet? As in none at all?" in half disbelieving voices. And things like "But how did you find out stuff? How did you know anything?" Teenagers who talk about stuff like is it worth having a kid while at uni so that you can get support while you are a student. Who research stull like what kind of grants can tehy get to set up their own businesses. They seem way better informed, about their rights/entitlements/right to own the world than I was when I was 16 or 17.

Dunroamin

dktreesea wrote: »

So you are in your late 20s, early 30s? Computing when I was at uni meant writing programs in Fortran, creating punch cards for the code and then waiting overnight for the programs to be run on an IBM mainframe. Email was in its infancy. The internet as we know it today didn't exist.

Nowadays, if I want to know about Caracas/hamstring injury/the kind of weather they have in the south west of England/jobs on offer in Kent/the full content of the last budget delivered by the government, I can probably look it all up in ten minutes. In those days getting that info would have meant hours in a library, poring over newspapers, and ordering the budget papers from the government printer. Days to get the information that now could be at least accessed in less than ten minutes, even if it would still take ages to read.

I've had teenagers say things to me like "Did you really have no internet? As in none at all?" in half disbelieving voices. And things like "But how did you find out stuff? How did you know anything?" Teenagers who talk about stuff like is it worth having a kid while at uni so that you can get support while you are a student. Who research stull like what kind of grants can tehy get to set up their own businesses. They seem way better informed, about their rights/entitlements/right to own the world than I was when I was 16 or 17.

I don't think that attitude's down to the nternet.