CARERS ALLOWANCE - SELF EMPLOYED **CONFUSED** Please Help!!!

Izzy_Skint

Hi Everyone

I'm REALLY CONFUSED and feel down in the Dumps!!!!!

DWP Carers Unit are giving me some really rubbish information, i've telephoned them twice today and i'm getting nowhere.

Can you PLEASE help?

I've been a Carer for 3 years and i'm always turning down part time work due to my carer situation. Today however i telephoned The Carers Unit and they said i can be Self Employed and earn a maximum of £100 per week.

I then asked about accounting, will my income be averaged over 12 Months? YES & NO was the answer, the Decision Maker at the Carer Unit will decide if your income is to be averaged over weeks, months or a year, it depends on what you are earning!

I was confused about this and gave some examples :

EXAMPLE.1
I've just started as Self Employed and The Carers Unit want to know my earnings every month. In the first month i earn £500, this of course exceeds the £100 a week and my Allowance is stopped or needs to be paid back.

EXAMPLE.2
I've just started as Self Employed and the Carers Unit want to know my earnings every 12 months. In the first month i earn £500, in the second i earned £1000, In the third i earned £500 and all other months i earned nothing. Based on them averaging my earnings over the 12 months, i would loose NO Allowance at all.

As you can see, having your earnings averaged over 12 months is more fair, but having it looked at once a month would loose you carers allowance.

To make things worse there was NO set system for all, its was all down to a Decision Maker at the Carers Unit. This is a very UNFAIR system because 2 people on different systems (monthly and yearly) could be earning the same but the person on the monthly system would loose his allowance but the other person on the yearly system would not loose no allowance.

HAVE I GOT THIS RIGHT?
Any advice would really be appreciated.
Thanks!

Izzy_Skint

saidan

my dh wrote all this in his application form - he works term time only so nil pay in school holidays, more during term time.

we put the examples in for previous 6 months showing how it evened out to less than £100 p/w

he was awarded carers allowance for our ds (who is the reason he works term time only)

Izzy_Skint

Hi Saidan

Thanks for your reply but unfortunately that has not helped.

If your SELF EMPLOYED, the Carers Allowance Unit can request for you to submit your earnings on a MONTHLY BASIS or a YEARLY BASIS.

On a MONTHLY BASIS there is more chance of your allowance being stopped!!!!
On a YEARLY BASIS your money is averaged over the year so as long as you earn less than 5200 over the year, you keep your carers allowance.

If you submit your earnings on a monthly basis and say you earned 500 in the first month, you will be requested to pay your allowance back but if requested to submit your earnings over a 1 year period, you will loose nothing because your earnings are averaged over the year.

Can anyone please help?
Thanks

Izzy_Skint

SuziQ

Maybe I am missing something here, but isn't the simple answer not to earn more than £400 in any given month? If you are self employed surely you can control what work you take on, and even if that means you occasionally lose out on work, you will still be better off than never earning anything!

My experience with the benefits system has been that there is no point getting annoyed at what seem like arbitrary rules. You just have to accept it is what it is, and be grateful for what you can get in the times that you need it and hope that circumstances improve in the future.

pmlindyloo

If you are self employed and claiming CA then you can deduct allowable expenses connected to your self employment just as you would for tax purposes.

It is because you have just started up that you may be asked to produce statements every month or so rather than yearly. This is to monitor your earnings (after allowable expenses). After the first year (if your actual 'earnings' are lower than the £100 a week)it is possible that your claim will be looked at once a year.

Why don't you contact these people and ask them to talk you through it?

http://www.carersuk.org/about-us/contact-us

Izzy_Skint

SuziQ - I'm not annoyed at all, just confused!!

Thanks also to pmlindyloo

The reason for my post was to share how unfair a system is when you rely heavy on Carers Allowance and trying to earn a little extra.

If i start a part time business (earnings unpredictable) it is more FAIR to be audited every YEAR because your earnings are AVERAGED over that YEAR.

If you are asked to submit accounts on a MONTHLY basis, you can loose your carers allowance if you earn £401 one month. Where's over a year i can earn say £500 a month over several months and nothing on other months and will NOT LOOSE any carers allowance, you understand?

Any comments much appreciated.

Izzy_Skint

HB58

Yes Izzy, I understand what you are saying. However, many of us have learned that the words 'fair' and 'benefits' are not always hears in the same sentance!

I'm afraid that the best advice I can give you is to put your energy into working within the system.