Worried about universal credit and self employment

dankerrysmum

I haven't posted on here for a very long time so bear with me
I am self employed ,ironing business , low wage around £60 per week which is topped up with tax credits for me and my two children , I am really worried about the impact of the new universal credit .i have read that you can be interviewed by job centre and assessed whether your business is viable enough , I don't make minimum wage , I'm kinda worried as I don't keep great books either , what will happen ?

dankerrysmum

Won't anyone help ?

Icequeen99

dankerrysmum wrote: »

I haven't posted on here for a very long time so bear with me
I am self employed ,ironing business , low wage around £60 per week which is topped up with tax credits for me and my two children , I am really worried about the impact of the new universal credit .i have read that you can be interviewed by job centre and assessed whether your business is viable enough , I don't make minimum wage , I'm kinda worried as I don't keep great books either , what will happen ?

You need to work on keeping proper records showing all of the money coming in and any going out along with receipts. I would also suggest you keep a diary of work hours and copies of adverts and other things showing how you find clients.

Presumably you are working for 16 hours a week? If so, and you are only charging people around £3.75 an hour that seems very low.

It isn't just universal credit. Tax credit rules changed from 6 April, and over the following year they will be applying the new rules to existing claimants. You will have to show that your business is on a commercial basis (which will look at viability, business plans etc) with a view to the realisation of profits. It also has to be organised and regular.

Once on UC, you will be assessed to see whether you are gainfully self-employed and if you are, then you will be treated as earning a number of hours x NMW (for some people 35 hours, others 16 hours, depending on how young the children are) unless you are exempt because of disability or other responsibilities. The alternative will be that you won't be gainfully self-employed, but you will be expected to look for employed work or increased your self-employed work to the level of 35 hours x NMW>

IQ

shegirl

Make sure you keep good records, to start with. Try and increase your earnings and workload or find another way to expand or change what you do.

They will be conducting interviews and checking whether businesses are viable and whether they have the earning potential.Those that aren't,the claimant will be expected to look for further work and you will be treated at earning the minimum wage for a certain amount of hours. This may also mean you won't get as much support in topping up your income,although I have no idea if transitional payments apply in this situation but it would make sense if they weren't as it defeats half of the point of UC.

A lot of self employed people will no doubt have problems as there are many who now have small businesses that either don't have much earning potential, are not planned properly, are hobby businesses or just are run with an intention of a small amount of money to be topped up. I think mums setting up businesses selling 'handmade' cards and random bits of things they've just stuck a few things to, and such like, are going to be a thing of the past as they generally don't really have much earning potential.

I don't know how much people usually earn from ironing but I can't see it, on it's own, as something that has much earning potential or the ability to keep increasing it's income and earn the equivalent of 35 hours of minimum wage.

Can you look into expanding and offering further services to increase the income? Providing home help or cleaning? Or doing something different? I imagine you don't have huge overheads and there's no outlay for something that may not happen so that's helpful. But it's a good idea to start planning and thinking about what you can do.

There will no doubt be many similar threads popping up all over the place regarding the same issue,so you won't be alone in your worry and there will probably be people to exchange ideas with on expanding,planning and adding to your work,and considering whether it's really worth it.

shegirl

Oh,and yes, Tax Credits will now start to look at small businesses too so start getting everything recorded and planned straight away. They have already been randomly checking some self employed people over the past few months (believe it was mumsnet where there were people being asked to provide records of their hours worked etc). So do keep a diary of your work (always good to have anyway,I always keep on because it's helpful to me,you can see where your time is going), copies of adverts placed, proof/paper copy of a website if you have one, receipts and invoices, any business plans etc

dankerrysmum

Could I just pack it in and apply for jsa ? I feel so worried about this , business is going nowhere anyway

tomtontom

Why not seek work whilst still doing the ironing?

dankerrysmum

I always have been but I live in a very rural area with very little work ,

MissMoneypenny

dankerrysmum wrote: »

I haven't posted on here for a very long time so bear with me
I am self employed ,ironing business , low wage around £60 per week which is topped up with tax credits for me and my two children , I am really worried about the impact of the new universal credit .i have read that you can be interviewed by job centre and assessed whether your business is viable enough , I don't make minimum wage , I'm kinda worried as I don't keep great books either , what will happen ?

I don't understand why you aren't making minnimum wage? Back in the early 90s I was making £6 an hour then, from ironing for about 8 to12 hours a week when my children were in bed. I charged for each item so it was head down and go. After the initial cards in all the other villages shop windows for a month, word of mouth worked.

If you can't take on more ironing, how about running a second busines too? I ran 3 small businesses and they all fitted in around my little children and brought in a living wage. I lived in a rural area then too.

A friend of mine was good at sewing and she started a business for replacing zips, sewing curtains, taking up hems ect and did really well with it.

If you can do this then you won't have to be worried about any benefit changes.

dankerrysmum

I'm charging per item , work 30 hrs plus ! , earn around £60 per week , mostly from friends and family , investigations are going to come down on me like a tonne of bricks aren't they ?
I'm really going to have to reassess my whole business , I haven't been investigated yet but as sure as hell I will with that low wage

poppasmurf_bewdley

dankerrysmum wrote: »

I'm charging per item , work 30 hrs plus ! , earn around £60 per week , mostly from friends and family , investigations are going to come down on me like a tonne of bricks aren't they ?
I'm really going to have to reassess my whole business , I haven't been investigated yet but as sure as hell I will with that low wage

If you are anywhere near me, let me know. I need someone to do my ironing and cleaning (but I'll have to buy an iron).