ESA Permitted Work - Self Employed Work

hj534

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DomRavioli

It is for employment, not self employment as far as I am aware, due to you paying your own tax & NI rather than a company doing so - they are two massively different things, but you would need to check the legalities, by calling your local benefit delivery centre (number will be on the letter).

Not sure that you can comprehensively say that making jewellery specifically has "psychological benefits" to the point where they may include self employment.

There's also no such thing as "volunteering for your own business" - it is work, therefore not eligible for volunteering as it is only your own interests which are protected.

Income is any money coming into the business. It counts, regardless of whether you make a profit. It is income. If someone pays you for goods or services, the WHOLE amount is income, and is counted as such.

Just to recap - I honestly don't think you can be self employed on ESA, check with the BDC, and let us know the answer - or I'm sure RogerBlack will be along soon.

mum2one

from my understanding the £20 allowance can only be permitted work where someone is supervising you.

When I was on Income support (lone parent), I did ad-hoc mystery shopping work, some weeks I would earn £20, then I could go 4 weeks at £0 (there was a lot o jobs couldn't do due to health issues), but now on ESA this work wouldn't be classed as permitted, so I very much doubt you'd even be able to get off the starting block (sorry) x

Horseunderwater

http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/work-people-living-disability-or-health-conditions
Have a read of this. It tells you the different PW levels rules etc.

chicken2009

Go with the part time jewellery online business, My back to work adviser suggested doing a sewing business, I checked with the DPW permitted work team. They said I could go ahead and you can be self employed on ESA, you do not need to be supervised. They said if I had a condition that meant that I would never be able to go back into work full time then yes I would need to be. If this was a way to get back into work then no I did not need to be supervised.

They look at sewing, anything art based as therapeutic and it can help you get back into work and the one that I spoke too said that they are letting people try lots of different things.

So go a head with it but do call DWP to go over quires and get form sent out.

chicken2009

Oh and I was told they would pay the taxes or NI, that I need to recheck again.

But they want people to try everything as way back to work and probally it helps there stats as well.

dktreesea

DomRavioli wrote: »

Income is any money coming into the business. It counts, regardless of whether you make a profit. It is income. If someone pays you for goods or services, the WHOLE amount is income, and is counted as such.

This is incorrect. The money coming into the business is your revenue. You take off the cost of the stock, plus working from home expenses (you can check the HMRC website for details of how much you are allowed to deduct - I can't recall the details offhand) and also take of things like Ebay's and Paypal's commissions, and any of the postage and packing costs of sending out the profit. What you are left with is your profit.

Profit is what counts as "income" for the purposes of assessing ESA, NOT the revenue.

epitome

You can apply for this self employment as permitted work, you can't work 16 hours or more or earn more than £101.00 per week .

Your profit will be your income, regardless of whether you decide to re-invest your profit.

Calculating your profit in the short term will be a bit of a nightmare (profit is a figure reached at the end of the tax year). So you may find your ESA is suspended until the DWP can agree that you do not have a large income.

The only way for your profit not to be seen as your income would be to have a registered company and be a registered company director. You would then be employed by your own business.... but you would also then have a business asset which would grow in value and could affect your ESA IR entitlement.

rogerblack

As I understand it, most of the posts above are incorrect.

What HMRC thinks about your income is as important as what your great aunt Maud does.

From another post.

Unfortunately, there is no handbook or leaflet on this, and the guidance to decision makers in internally contradictory.

See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/decision-makers-guide-vols-8-and-9-employment-and-support-allowance-staff-guide - for the whole lot.

You specifically want to read the 'self employed earners' and 'general rules on income' parts.

In short - it's not 20 pounds, it's 20 income, after tax, certain NI conts, (probably not applicable unless you set up a company so you're actually employed not self-employed), half the amount you contribute to a personal pension, and expenses wholey and unavoidably due to running the business.

They may average it, but it depends on their interpretation of the guidance.
One bit says 'the period of averaging should be extended as time goes on up to the first 12 months' - which implies you can earn 40 pounds in week 1, then 140 in week 2, ...

But the examples are all averaging over a shorter period.

Then there are 'bushiness cycles' rules - if you earn once every 4 weeks, for example this may be a appropriate.

In short - it's horribly confusing.
Try to understand the above guidance, and then submit your PWK form, register with HMRC, and then negotiate with your personal adviser, or whatever they call them.
Get their direct phone number first time they contact you.

Be careful.
If you earn too much, then your money is not reduced, your claim ends, it is not suspended, and you need to reapply.
This is why you need to get it really clear, ideally in writing, what the averaging rules are.

A personal pension you can flexibly put excess money in would be useful.
I'm unsure how that works, but from an ESA point-of-view, if you put in 100 pounds a week, then you can earn the earnings limit + 50.

You absolutely need to register - they don't have to treat any work as permitted work, and as I understand it any work done outside the permitted work rules has no allowance. That is - earn 20 pounds, and your benefit is reduced by 20 pounds.
In addition, permitted work is to be ignored when assessing capability of work.
Other work is not ignored.