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Universal Credit question
yorkrose
Posts: 4 Newbie
Hi there,
Question about Universal Credit and how it could affect my family...sorry if it gets long winded!
My partner and I are both self-employed as a partnership, our business involves flying birds of prey at country shows, and offering private handling sessions, flying experiences etc, you get the idea! We set up around a year and a half ago, April 2013 in actual fact. For the first financial year we hardly had any work, due to waiting times for the licencing we needed to arrive, and just general competition for work, and getting noticed etc. We did get work, not much, and we certainly did not make a profit!
This year, we have had loads of work! But, because we have expanded upon the business, I doubt we will make much profit, I am working through the business paperwork for this year, and the max we will make in profit will be 2-3000 pounds.
We have a young child, and we collect working and child tax credits. My partners health is fine, but I have several chronic health complaints - hypothyroidism, torticollis of the neck, costochondritis of the ribs, and I am currently being tested for fibromyalgia. I do not claim any benefits whatsoever for these health complaints, because they do not affect my capabilities to run my business. Sometimes, I am in a lot of pain, and my working hours change daily because of my energy level drops, but I feel fit enough to run my business. However, I feel I would struggle to be in employment because I would find it hard to be consistent to work set hours - some days I am fine, others I find it difficult to wake up and have to take anti-inflammatories to get through the day, and it is only because I can take breaks when I need to, being self employed, that I am coping. When I did have a part time job, which I finished shortly before starting self employment, I was dropping off to sleep at my work station, and having to drink energy drinks to keep up, even if I had slept for 12 hours the night before.
It is my understanding that when we are moved onto Universal Credit, we will have to sign an agreement saying what we will have to do to keep the universal credit. I understand that we will have to be bringing in the equivalent to a full time wage from our business, otherwise we will either be expected to look for work elsewhere or lose the UC. But apparently, there will be people who will be excepted from this.
What I was wondering was, what do you think they would say about our situation? Both my partner and I work 50+ hours a week at our self employment, caring for the livestock, keeping them clean and maintained, maintaining equipment and vehicles, training and flying the birds to keep them fit, contacting clients, maintaining our website, doing bookeeping, making tools and equipment etc. We are often doing different jobs, so it isn't like we are two people doing a one man job. In fact, one week we worked over 80 hours each. And, we have to work these hours to maintain the standard of living of our animals to a good welfare level or we would be breaking animal welfare laws.
Also, where we work by taking bookings for our events, we need to be available for those bookings, which would be impossible if we were having to dodge around days working another job. Where we do a lot of driving to bookings (sometimes up to 7 hours each way for shows) we need a days break afterwards to recover from the travelling. And, working as many hours as we do, I cannot imagine an employer wanting to touch us, as legally we cannot work any more hours than we already do.
But, what if, when UC comes in, we are not earning as much as they are saying people should be earning? We cannot take on more employment, we cannot do any less hours in our business, my health wouldn't allow me to work in regular employment (I could probably manage, but I would not be very reliable!), and as I cannot drive, getting to our bookings is reliant on my partner. As I said, I am confident we will be in profit by next year. And we will keep building on that success in years to come. But I am petrified that they will say it isn't enough, and am worried what they will expect us to do.
Or will they except us from the requirement to seek more work, based on the hours we already do and the fact we keep livestock that requires round the clock care?
I would be interested to hear your thoughts!
Question about Universal Credit and how it could affect my family...sorry if it gets long winded!
My partner and I are both self-employed as a partnership, our business involves flying birds of prey at country shows, and offering private handling sessions, flying experiences etc, you get the idea! We set up around a year and a half ago, April 2013 in actual fact. For the first financial year we hardly had any work, due to waiting times for the licencing we needed to arrive, and just general competition for work, and getting noticed etc. We did get work, not much, and we certainly did not make a profit!
This year, we have had loads of work! But, because we have expanded upon the business, I doubt we will make much profit, I am working through the business paperwork for this year, and the max we will make in profit will be 2-3000 pounds.
We have a young child, and we collect working and child tax credits. My partners health is fine, but I have several chronic health complaints - hypothyroidism, torticollis of the neck, costochondritis of the ribs, and I am currently being tested for fibromyalgia. I do not claim any benefits whatsoever for these health complaints, because they do not affect my capabilities to run my business. Sometimes, I am in a lot of pain, and my working hours change daily because of my energy level drops, but I feel fit enough to run my business. However, I feel I would struggle to be in employment because I would find it hard to be consistent to work set hours - some days I am fine, others I find it difficult to wake up and have to take anti-inflammatories to get through the day, and it is only because I can take breaks when I need to, being self employed, that I am coping. When I did have a part time job, which I finished shortly before starting self employment, I was dropping off to sleep at my work station, and having to drink energy drinks to keep up, even if I had slept for 12 hours the night before.
It is my understanding that when we are moved onto Universal Credit, we will have to sign an agreement saying what we will have to do to keep the universal credit. I understand that we will have to be bringing in the equivalent to a full time wage from our business, otherwise we will either be expected to look for work elsewhere or lose the UC. But apparently, there will be people who will be excepted from this.
What I was wondering was, what do you think they would say about our situation? Both my partner and I work 50+ hours a week at our self employment, caring for the livestock, keeping them clean and maintained, maintaining equipment and vehicles, training and flying the birds to keep them fit, contacting clients, maintaining our website, doing bookeeping, making tools and equipment etc. We are often doing different jobs, so it isn't like we are two people doing a one man job. In fact, one week we worked over 80 hours each. And, we have to work these hours to maintain the standard of living of our animals to a good welfare level or we would be breaking animal welfare laws.
Also, where we work by taking bookings for our events, we need to be available for those bookings, which would be impossible if we were having to dodge around days working another job. Where we do a lot of driving to bookings (sometimes up to 7 hours each way for shows) we need a days break afterwards to recover from the travelling. And, working as many hours as we do, I cannot imagine an employer wanting to touch us, as legally we cannot work any more hours than we already do.
But, what if, when UC comes in, we are not earning as much as they are saying people should be earning? We cannot take on more employment, we cannot do any less hours in our business, my health wouldn't allow me to work in regular employment (I could probably manage, but I would not be very reliable!), and as I cannot drive, getting to our bookings is reliant on my partner. As I said, I am confident we will be in profit by next year. And we will keep building on that success in years to come. But I am petrified that they will say it isn't enough, and am worried what they will expect us to do.
Or will they except us from the requirement to seek more work, based on the hours we already do and the fact we keep livestock that requires round the clock care?
I would be interested to hear your thoughts!
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Comments
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As I said, I am confident we will be in profit by next year
UC is not likely to be in force for those claiming working tax credit especially families with young children and housing costs for at least a couple of years.
It is rolling out _extremely_ slowly - at the moment there are several thousand claimants - basically all healthy young single people with no housing costs.
My understanding is that under UC - how many hours you work is basically irrelevant. (other than perhaps for startup periods).
Earn under X/week, have to do full-time job-seeking.
Earn from X to Y a week, have to take more limited steps to seek more work.
Earn more than Y per week, and there are no requirements.0 -
rogerblack wrote: »UC is not likely to be in force for those claiming working tax credit especially families with young children and housing costs for at least a couple of years.
It is rolling out _extremely_ slowly - at the moment there are several thousand claimants - basically all healthy young single people with no housing costs.
My understanding is that under UC - how many hours you work is basically irrelevant. (other than perhaps for startup periods).
Earn under X/week, have to do full-time job-seeking.
Earn from X to Y a week, have to take more limited steps to seek more work.
Earn more than Y per week, and there are no requirements.
Hey, thanks for the reply! Good to hear your thoughts, and phew, at least I hope we have a couple of years then to keep plugging away at this business!
All I am worried about, is that I thought I read that we both had to earn the equivalent of a minimum wage for 35 hours work, which I think the article worked out at £900ish pounds each per month. If in a couple of years say, if UC is rolled out across the board, and we were busy with bookings, our business was going well etc, but we were not earning that between the two of us, what would they say? Particularly as our business can be fairly seasonal, some months we earn much less, where as summer months it would be easily possible to earn 5000-6000 in one month, but the monthly average would be far lower, for example because in say January we may earn nothing. What would they do in that scenario?0 -
Hey, thanks for the reply! Good to hear your thoughts, and phew, at least I hope we have a couple of years then to keep plugging away at this business!
All I am worried about, is that I thought I read that we both had to earn the equivalent of a minimum wage for 35 hours work, which I think the article worked out at £900ish pounds each per month. If in a couple of years say, if UC is rolled out across the board, and we were busy with bookings, our business was going well etc, but we were not earning that between the two of us, what would they say? Particularly as our business can be fairly seasonal, some months we earn much less, where as summer months it would be easily possible to earn 5000-6000 in one month, but the monthly average would be far lower, for example because in say January we may earn nothing. What would they do in that scenario?
Have a read of this. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/322280/uc-and-self-employment-quick-guide.pdf
It should answer your questions.
However, it seems that there is some time before this comes into place and there is plenty of time and other factors that may change the rules and regulations in the future.
What I would suggest is that you make sure you pay your NI contributions (class 2) as you have some health problems (hope that isn't too pessimistic
)
Class 2 contributions would make you eligible for contribution based Employment Support Allowance if needed in the future.0 -
If there are no limitations on the number of hours you can work, the minimum income floor is likely to be the equivalent of you working 35 hours per week at the National Minimum Wage for your age group. Your Universal Credit payment will reflect this assumed level of earnings and so will be less than you would receive if you were unemployed or only working a few hours per week.
If you earn less than the minimum income floor in any month, Universal Credit will not bridge that gap. This will encourage you to grow your business and make sure it can support you.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/322280/uc-and-self-employment-quick-guide.pdf0 -
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i work as a childrens entertiner doing parties and face painting and some of my shows are 2 hours drive away ,i dot make a lot of profit -enough to get by and i run a quiz night once a week ,i was asked recently to send all of my books etc to compliance office in liverpool,they have denied me any tax credits as they said that the travel to and from the venue is not classed as working hours ,i do not believe that this is true can anyone else shed any light on this ?
i found this on the government website- travelling for the purposes of the business, but not from home to their business premises
- book keeping
- which seems to contradict this
0 -
i found this on the government website...
- travelling for the purposes of the business, but not from home to their business premises
- book keeping
- which seems to contradict this
My understanding is that as a self employed person, you can count traveling only if it's in the context of an actual job.
If someone employs you to start out at home, drive to their house, and do something, then you are fine claiming the hours travel.
If however they employ you to turn up at their house, and do something - you can't.0 -
I'm not sure if Universal Credit will be worth self employed people worrying about for several years to come. I predict you would have plenty of time to build your business up, OP, to earning a reasonable income.
As recently as April 2014 the DWP were predicting (to the social entitlements chamber who hear benefits appeals) several hundred thousand appeals per year from now on.
The outgoing president, Robert Martin, recently made public their latest estimate:
Several times a year the DWP provides the tribunals service with estimates of how many appeals are likely to be generated in the next five years. This is vital for the tribunals service, who need to be able to plan how many staff to recruit and how many venues to provide for hearings. The DWP give estimates for each different type of benefit, as tribunals may be constituted differently depending on the benefit involved.
The Judge reveals that in its April 2013 forecast the DWP estimated that there would be 1,355 UC appeals in 2013-14 and 77,926 UC appeals in 2014-15. In fact, by the end of March 2014, due to the tiny number of claimants who have been able to claim UC, there had been just three appeals.
The DWP made further forecasts in December 2013 and most recently in April 2014. In the last of these the DWP estimated that there would be:
393,000 appeals in 2014-15
456,000 appeals in 2015-16
622,000 appeals in 2016-17
553,000 appeals in 2017-18
340,000 appeals in 2018-19
However, Judge Martin reveals that none of these appeals are now predicted by the DWP to be for universal credit.
It is not credible that the DWP now imagines that no claimant of UC will appeal in the next five years. The only reasonable explanation, therefore, is that the DWP now expect there to be so few people receiving the benefit that the number of appeals generated will be too small to make provision for."
(source: http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/2789-dwp-believes-universal-credit-is-dead-tribunal-president-reveals )0 -
i work as a childrens entertiner doing parties and face painting and some of my shows are 2 hours drive away ,i dot make a lot of profit -enough to get by and i run a quiz night once a week ,i was asked recently to send all of my books etc to compliance office in liverpool,they have denied me any tax credits as they said that the travel to and from the venue is not classed as working hours ,i do not believe that this is true can anyone else shed any light on this ?
i found this on the government website- travelling for the purposes of the business, but not from home to their business premises
- book keeping
- which seems to contradict this
What the HMRC have said to me on this very point is that travel from home for work purposes, to places other than your premises, depends on how much you can demonstrate that your main place of work is in the home.
And also whether the hiring party hire you as a contractor, so give you a PAYE payslip, without any requirement for an invoice, or whether you invoice them for your services, charging them VAT if you are registered.
I conclude from this that, while it sounds like the guy knows what he is talking about, the reality is it is quite a grey area.0 -
If you charge your client for travelling time, would it then be included in your working hours ?0
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