Earnings and Carers Allowance HELP!

carlaeliza

I am trying to work out what to do- I have a son who receives DLA (awarded recently) and I can now claim for Carers allowance for him ( I don't claim currently)
I look after him for the 35 hours and more but I also work whilst he is at school.

I work 3 mornings in one setting and one school hour day in another setting. then I look after him before and after school ect.

The first job is paid on a shift basis and I do 3 shifts, so I earn a set amount per week but paid monthly- it is term time only and the pay is NOT spread out over the year- I am paid on the last day of the month and not paid during school holidays apart from 3 weeks holiday pay ( so out of 52 weeks I don't get paid for 10 so pay is for 42 weeks per year only.)

the second job is term time only but my pay is spread out for the whole year so is the same every month. I have a pension and have taken off half of that to calculate my earnings.

My problem is I earn £10.30 per week over the £100 Allowance for claiming Carers allowance.

I wanted advice to find out if they could take my earnings from the first job averaged out over a whole year without me changing anything?

if not I will be better off by dropping a shift- or try to negotiate with my boss to change my pay to be spread out like the second job- but this seems silly as it will be the same amount as I'm earning just paid differently!

As the carers allowance is pretty much £60 a week I am much better off claiming it and just need to earn £10.30 less to be officially entitled- I need to know if anyone else has been in a similar situation?

I am looking for specific answers- I know about the 5 week rule for irregular workers and that does not help me

I want to know if they can look at my term time only earnings spread out without me actually doing it with my employer- because I feel my employer will probably not want to do it for me and it will possibly be allot of hassle to get them to agree as I'm pretty new to the job!!

I am trying to avoid dropping a whole shift for the sake of £10 when I don't work all year round and I was employed on the basis I could do the 3 days- I am aware I can't earn over £100 per week.

Indie_Kid

I know this isn't quite what you're asking about, but:
The £100 a week is after allowable expenses and 50% of payments into a pension. Would any of these apply to you?

carlaeliza

I don't have any expenses that I can think of that fit and I have already taken off the Pension- I only pay £10 per month into it and so its only taking off £5- but thank you! I have looked into it but just can't find anything that fits term time only pay.

[Deleted User]

can you increase your pension contributions?

carlaeliza

Pension is only counted at half- so being £10.30 over I'd have to pay double that to make that work so I'd have to increase it by £20.60 per week, £84 per month- which would almost wipe out my whole wage per month- so its not beneficial sadly

meg72

Apologies if I have misread this but I read that your second job is an hour a day for a five day week, I would drop this and claim the carers allowance, more money and extra time for what is important to you.

rogerblack

carlaeliza wrote: »

My problem is I earn £10.30 per week over the £100 Allowance for claiming Carers allowance.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/252079/dmg-vol10-ch60.pdf

Are the rules as used by decisionmakers.

This refers to https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/251778/dmg-vol3-ch15.pdf

15025 is the relevant bit - this is what 'income' is not from this perspective.

Any costs that are unavoidably due to the performance of your work - for example - laundering uniforms would be deductable.

Also - 15024.6.2 - any expenses that the employee may have for the care of a family member while the employee is away from home.

15380 gives how to compute net earnings from gross earnings.

Remember to take off all tax you pay (if any).

In short - if there are no applicable deductions - you can pay someone 11 pounds a week to look in on your son sometimes.

15814 goes into this in detail. It can't be a close family member.

cattermole

It wouldn't wipe out the wage as such because you would be getting the carer's allowance on top if you paid more into the pension. £10 a month into a pension isn't really worth doing, if you want to have any kind of a private pension for the future you need to be paying more into it anyway.

tinkledom

cattermole wrote: »

£10 a month into a pension isn't really worth doing, if you want to have any kind of a private pension for the future you need to be paying more into it anyway.

Absolutely, but it is a start, but depends heavily on the level of the annual charges made.


As a minimum you should have a pension pot of £300,000 at age 65, if that is when you want to retire.


at current rates depending on the annuity purchased, the return is somewhere between 3.5 and 5%.
As an average that should give a weekly income of approx. £250 at todays values and not taking into account what inflation will be over the years to come.


Obviously that is why a lot of people now invest in buy to let properties which with £300,000 invested should be showing a net return of at least 7%

carlaeliza

no my second job is one day for 6 hours- I love that job and don't want to give up any work as such. Thank you for the help- I think asking my employer to spread my wage over 52 weeks is the way to go - just hassle for them and me initially.

cattermole

If you pay £90 into the pension or what ever the figure is a month. You will still be £120 a month better off and you will be saving for your future.
And able to work in both jobs.

Plus you will have NI contributions for every week at an enhanced amount. Not sure you will at the moment if you are below the amounts in both jobs and not working 52 weeks a year. (apart from the CB element) which I think they are going to reduce to only counting for 10 years when the new state pension scheme comes in?

For example my state pension prediction at the moment is higher than my husbands because I was a carer for over 20 years, where as he is in an opted out pension scheme. So he only gets the basic state pension.