Help on hours worked

happydivorced

I currently only work about 12 hours a week self employed And was wondering if the hours i spent doing my Parents and grandparents cleaning and gardening count towards anymore as never use them to make the 16 hrs to make a claim as not sure whether i can. Please does anyone know.

nannytone_2

do you get paid to do their cleaning?
do you declare these earnings to HMRC?

Caz3121

Are you being paid for that work and including it in your self employed earnings?

happydivorced

They give me 20 for coming down and helping them. I pay the petrol out of it so not making very much but was thinking it would be classed as a favour rather than actually working which is a shame as could then add the hours togther and claim WTC..

rogerblack

Yes, it may count, if you would not do it without pay.
However, if it ends up at below the minimum wage, you would only be able to claim for 20/minimum wage hours.

happydivorced

I have never heard of the 20/minimum wage hours.. What does that mean please.. ? Sorry if i sound a bit dumb but never realised being self employed i had to charge the minimum wage. I have found that by charging less i got more.. I know it may sound daft but 5 pounds an hour is better to me than nothing.

HappyMJ

happydivorced wrote: »

They give me 20 for coming down and helping them. I pay the petrol out of it so not making very much but was thinking it would be classed as a favour rather than actually working which is a shame as could then add the hours togther and claim WTC..

It's a little more complex than that.

You need to be registered self employed with the HMRC paying NI contributions and filling out a self assessment each year.

Paying the petrol out of the money is not a valid expense but mileage is. How many miles to your client's premises?

You must call them your client, have a contract, invoice them and so on...and you should really have more than one client.

Casual favours like this I'll do this for you and you do this for me between family members is not valid work for tax credits. It's been tried out before where two people were claiming they were working cleaning each others houses invoicing each other and everything by the book and the HMRC declined the claim ...so don't try and get around it.

I'd try speaking with HMRC about the work you do you never know they might accept the hours as valid working hours in your case.

HappyMJ

happydivorced wrote: »

I have never heard of the 20/minimum wage hours.. What does that mean please.. ? Sorry if i sound a bit dumb but never realised being self employed i had to charge the minimum wage. I have found that by charging less i got more.. I know it may sound daft but 5 pounds an hour is better to me than nothing.

It means you are supposed to invoice the client at least minimum wages...around £6.50 per hour. You can charge less but if you charged £26 for a cleaning/gardening session then only a maximum of 4 hours will count as working hours. The HMRC is changing the rules soon to only count profit. The expenses come off what you charge so if you did 50 miles getting to/from the clients premises then only about half an hour counts as working hours.

happydivorced

I am registered with HMRC as self employed but my last business i done went all wrong so have tried to do something different to make ends meet rather than JSA.. As i said i only charge 5 an hour with the clients that i have so far as only been doing it about a month now.. And anything is better than nothing to me.. Maybe the hours i spend putting leaflets through letter boxes to try and build up my little empire would count as well.. I just find it all so daunting as to what and what does not count towards working hours and now confused about what im charging..

pmlindyloo

Do your circumstances mean that you only need to work 16 hours a week to qualify for working tax credits? Single with a child(ren), disabled, over 60?

Other things other than the actual hours you work are counted for tax credits eg time spent on advertising.

See here for a idea of what counts towards the hours.

If you are only charging £5 an hour for 12 hours your income is less than if you were on JSA.

This isn't sensible! What kind of work are you doing? Is it comparable with what other people charge for similar work?

happydivorced

Thank you for your help. I think it is best to phone them up and explain the situation. I do not want to be claiming something i maybe not entitled to and find i am in all sorts of bother. !! But with what you have all kindly told me with the few clients i have plus doing the hours for two elderly relatives that are prepared to pay for my services.. (If that is allowed and counted) plus the time spent door dropping leaflets i might qualify then when i have established what i have a bit more any new clients i have i would think about putting my charges up. At the moment i just wanted to do something and build up some kind of small business