Paying my wife to qualify for child benefit

samcrows

Hi there,
I hope I'm posting in the right place - would be really grateful for help with this.
My wife is employed (part-time), earning around £8,000 p/a. I'm self-employed, earning around £60,000 p/a.
I would like my wife to do a bit of work for my business. If I pay her (as a freelancer) around £12,000 p/a, can we then claim child benefit and reduce our tax bill without running into problems?
Thanks,
Sam

Guest101

samcrows wrote: »

Hi there,
I hope I'm posting in the right place - would be really grateful for help with this.
My wife is employed (part-time), earning around £8,000 p/a. I'm self-employed, earning around £60,000 p/a.
I would like my wife to do a bit of work for my business. If I pay her (as a freelancer) around £12,000 p/a, can we then claim child benefit and reduce our tax bill without running into problems?
Thanks,
Sam

Short answer is no. You are self employed, your income is over £50,000, how you spend that is irrelevant.


If you had a company and employed yourself and her, then that would be different. But you would also be running a company.

Icequeen99

Guest101 wrote: »

Short answer is no. You are self employed, your income is over £50,000, how you spend that is irrelevant.


If you had a company and employed yourself and her, then that would be different. But you would also be running a company.

That's not correct - if he is self-employed as a sole trader an employee would be a legitimate expense that can be deducted before his tax is calculated just like any other expense. Or she could be self-employed and invoice him, either way it is deductible as a business expense.

IQ

Housing_Benefit_Officer

If the rules allow you to do this go ahead.

xylophone

Had you thought of making a pension contribution?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/sep/28/child-benefit-pension-contributions-higher-earners

Darksparkle

You'll want to do a status check first to make sure she's genuinely employed or self employed so tax and nic can be dealt with appropriately. I also wouldn't say to HMRC that your pay her so you get child benefit.

TELLIT01

Wouldn't your accountant be the best person to advise on this?

[Deleted User]

A great attempt at a troll thread but no one is biting

theronstar

Are there often people who come along with hypotheticals in order to test forum members?

Cheeky_Monkey

In a word - yes