claiming for partners help?

horseshoe77

hi,

This may be a silly question, but i was told that because my wife helps me a small amount with my business (she does my book keeping, and helps with inquiries and research) that i could claim, what i could only assume to be a 'wage' for her. She's currently unemployed but not claiming any benefits. Being aware this might be hearsay i tried to find out online but couldn't find any info.

Could any of you shed any light on this for me?

I only have a very basic grasp of the self assessment system so all the help i could get would be great.

Thanks.

purdyoaten

There is no problem with that, provided the money is actually paid to her, either by cheque or bank transfer. . It is insufficient to suddenly decide that you should have done this some time ago and simply put an entry in your accounting records to that effect. I would not, therefore, be altering 2012/13 records at this stage.

Payments of less than £108 per week attract no tax or NIC and there would be no requirement for registration as an employer with HMRC. You must pay her a reasonable amount for the work done - beware of minimum wage.

chrismac1

The last post is fine for the first paragraph.

£109 is the 13/14 lower earnings limit. Above this you MUST register as an employer and send RTI submissions on or before each payment to your staff.

Different clients take different views on this. Some pay £100 per week. Others go for between £110 and £147 (as £148 would involve paying over some NI) and pay me to submit the RTI stuff. This means the employee gets a credit towards one year of State Pension. The benefit of this easily outweighs the hassle and cost, now we have the "triple lock" on the pension.

Note that all clients in this situation give me full details on the duties performed by the staff member concerned. In particular I like them to have some sort of visibility with third parties such as suppliers and customers. Very tough for HMRC to argue that a role is a mere sham to save tax when you can say "Here is the phone number of Customer X. You can give them a call and ask them about their dealings with her if you like."

trailingspouse

Basically, she has to actually do the work, and she has to actually be paid. Simple really.

purdyoaten

chrismac1 wrote: »

The last post is fine for the first paragraph.

£109 is the 13/14 lower earnings limit. Above this you MUST register as an employer and send RTI submissions on or before each payment to your staff.

Different clients take different views on this. Some pay £100 per week. Others go for between £110 and £147 (as £148 would involve paying over some NI) and pay me to submit the RTI stuff. This means the employee gets a credit towards one year of State Pension. The benefit of this easily outweighs the hassle and cost, now we have the "triple lock" on the pension.

Note that all clients in this situation give me full details on the duties performed by the staff member concerned. In particular I like them to have some sort of visibility with third parties such as suppliers and customers. Very tough for HMRC to argue that a role is a mere sham to save tax when you can say "Here is the phone number of Customer X. You can give them a call and ask them about their dealings with her if you like."

Absolutely correct - £109 - it was a typo honest!!