How do you work out hours for tax credit purposes?

Icequeen99

Charityworker wrote: »

Not if it was my own office for my own business I wouldnt. I'd still be getting what I'm getting now but still only doing the same amount of work.

This proves my point that if I worked from 9 to 5 in an office I could say I'm doing more hours than if you work from home. Not that I will do that but do you see what I mean?

Sorry I don't get what you mean - both employed and self-employed people can claim for the hours that they are paid or are expected to be paid. How you demonstrate that is obviously different.

If you are working the required number of hours, then it doesn't matter when you are doing them. I don't quite understand why it is a problem if you are actually working that number - whether it is 9 to 5 or in 1 hour intervals at different times of the day and night it doesn't matter as long as it adds up to your hours threshold.

The problem is that self-employed people don't get paid if they sit around twiddling their thumbs.

EDITED to add: I have re-read your post and I think I misunderstood what you were saying. I now think you are saying if you went to an office in your self-employed business you could claim for all of the hours. I think you will find that is not correct and when they do a compliance check on self-employed they want to see actual evidence of hours worked. So appointments/clients/invoices/receipts/emails.

IQ

Charityworker

Icequeen99 wrote: »

EDITED to add: I have re-read your post and I think I misunderstood what you were saying. I now think you are saying if you went to an office in your self-employed business you could claim for all of the hours. I think you will find that is not correct and when they do a compliance check on self-employed they want to see actual evidence of hours worked. So appointments/clients/invoices/receipts/emails.

IQ

Yes that's what I mean. If I had a shop for example and I worked in it full time I could say I was self employed 30 hours a week. But I might not sell anything all day. Because I work from home I can't do that whereas people that have a 'premises' can. Do you get my drift? I actually rang tax credits yesterday and asked if this was the case. They said yes.

mummyroysof3

If you only get £10 a week do you need it? If you don't then you wouldn't need to bother with all the requirements for it

Freshstart2012

If you can prove your hours and are meeting all of your requirements then you should claim if you really need that extra cash , if it was me I think I would rather lose the £40 and not have to meet all of the Tax Credit requirements and try to make it up elsewhere. However everyone has different circumstances, so good luck with whatever choice you make.