Claiming with a partner

sharon32uk

Hi my names sharon im 32 years old, live in the uk and have an 8 year old daughter.
I am receiving benefits of
£71 for working tax credits
£62 for child tax credits
£20 for child benefits
total £153 per week

I live in a council house which my rent is paid for.
I am a self employed mobile hair dresser.
At present i am trying to get more clients with advertising and growing my business,
I currently earn around £20 pounds a week through cutting hair.

My partner was living with his parents and was receiving £100 a week as he was on ESA as he has 2 prolapsed disc and sciatica pain pain.
But now he has moved in with me , he has received a letter saying - they can not pay him income related employment support allowance because you have as much or money coming in than the law says you need to live on.
They are paying me no more than they did when i just lived with my daughter.

Im now unsure what we should do, is it correct we have enough live on ?
And do we just half the benefits the government is giving me ?

jacques_chirac

Surely you are earning more than £20 for sixteen hours work?

Indie_Kid

Working tax credits are counted income for ESA. Also, your partner can't receive income based ESA if you work for more than 24 hours per week.

sharon32uk

blondebubbles wrote: »

Have you informed tax credits that you are livings with a partner?

Yes i have informed tax credits that i am living with my partner

jacques_chirac wrote: »

Surely you are earning more than £20 for sixteen hours work?

At the moment most of the 16 hours is posting flyers and visiting nursing homes to see if they require a hair dresser.

Icequeen99

sharon32uk wrote: »

Yes i have informed tax credits that i am living with my partner



At the moment most of the 16 hours is posting flyers and visiting nursing homes to see if they require a hair dresser.

Have you made a new claim together as a couple?

Unless he is classed as 'incapacitated' (which means he needs to be getting certain benefits) then you will need to work at least 24 hours.

Do you go around and visit these nursing homes for that many hours every week? I would suggest you keep a diary because if HMRC check your claim you may have a hard time convincing them that you are working 16 hours in expectation of payment.

IQ

sharon32uk

Icequeen99 wrote: »

Have you made a new claim together as a couple?

Unless he is classed as 'incapacitated' (which means he needs to be getting certain benefits) then you will need to work at least 24 hours.

Do you go around and visit these nursing homes for that many hours every week? I would suggest you keep a diary because if HMRC check your claim you may have a hard time convincing them that you are working 16 hours in expectation of payment.

IQ

Yes we have made a claim together.
I am struggling to work the full 16 hours a week.
But what am i suppose to do ? just give up at being a mobile hair dresser ?
Would i be able to claim jsa , and still do mobile hair dressing ?

Icequeen99

sharon32uk wrote: »

Yes we have made a claim together.
I am struggling to work the full 16 hours a week.
But what am i suppose to do ? just give up at being a mobile hair dresser ?
Would i be able to claim jsa , and still do mobile hair dressing ?

I am not an expert on JSA, but my understanding is that yes you can work under 16 hours and get JSA although JSA is reduced £1 for £1 above the earnings disregard of £5/10.

I would go and see a CAB welfare rights adviser or similar. The danger is if you are not hitting those 16 hours properly - i.e. working enough hours in expectation of payment then you could be building up an overpayment of working tax credit.

IQ

Housing_Benefit_Officer

sharon32uk wrote: »

Yes we have made a claim together.
I am struggling to work the full 16 hours a week.
But what am i suppose to do ? just give up at being a mobile hair dresser ?
Would i be able to claim jsa , and still do mobile hair dressing ?

If you are good at what you do and have a loyal and growing customer base then expand what you are doing. I would examine the prices you are charging. It is a business - you are in it to make profit not provide a cheap service for friends and relatives. How much do your rivals charge and are you underselling yourself? Offer your clients a discount for every confirmed referral - that way your current customers are getting a discount and you will expand your customer base. Ideally your business should take you out of benefits altogether. Your question shouldn't be how many hours can I do and still get JSA - it should be how much do I need to earn to escape the benefit trap.

NYM

Are you registered as self employed with HMRC ?

BigAunty

The problem with people going self employed and gaining tax credits (unlike the JSA enterprise programme) is that there is no requirement to produce a thorough business plan that would help set up a successful thriving business. This would be the normal way people would set up a proper business if they weren't tempted by instant WTC.

It may be worthwhile the OP producing a proper business plan that will cover things like marketing, competition and so on, rather than just speculatively posting flyers and popping to nursing homes but instead have a target thorough advertising programme, see if a website might help, etc. Though the OP is too old for the Princes Trust enterprise programme to get mentoring, perhaps posters on this forum know of other organisations that help the self employed build strong businesses?.

To the OP - in future, tax credits will be scrapped and different conditionality bought in for the self employed when the Universal Credit system is introduced (some say 'if' it is ever implemented). Basically, the govt have expressed disappointment with the long term benefit dependency of the self employed and want them to be more self sufficient through their business income. At the moment, a self employed person only has to show that they are 'busy' for the x amount of hours they need to qualify for WTC. In future, there will be an expectation that they should be able to earn a minimum income floor, netting the National Minimum Wage from their business. Do some research into UC and self employment.