Prolific Academic Survey Alerts

MollyR

silvercar said:

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim45090

"Prizes, awards or other incentives provided by a trader may be taxable in the hands of the recipient."

"If the award is in the form of cash, then the taxable receipt is the amount of cash received."

That doesn't relate to random draws or lotteries - it relates to things like bonuses paid to the best-performing sales staff.

onemouseplace

The issue with using Prolific's figures as reported are:
1. They don't align with the UK tax year; and
2. The conversion from USD to GBP doesn't include Paypal's swinging fees (PA's rough calculation of what I will earn is always out).

So I just keep a running tab in a spreadsheet of all withdrawals from PA I have made via Paypal as I go (I tend to withdraw once a month to keep it simple) and use that figure on my tax return.

If HMRC want to cross reference PA's documentation with that, they are more than welcome!

elsien

I just added that not all prolific bonuses are for a random draw. Most of them are payment per completing X number of entries over Y amount of time As an encouragement to fill in a daily diary, for example.
Or an additional payment where a study has taken longer than expected.
I would count those “bonuses“ as payment for the study. It doesn’t compare to a lottery or a prize  draw.

Slinky

silvercar said:

The advantage of using PayPal is that you are totalling “pay” received in the financial year, rather than according to the dates of the surveys. This is the correct way to do it as you want earnings received during the financial year, not when they were earned but not actually paid. Obvious comparison with a paye job where you look at your earnings in the year not when you completed work. The further advantage is that you can choose whether to withdraw in early April or hold off to the new financial year.

I read somewhere recently, I'm sorry I can't remember whether it was on the Prolific website or in an email, but they said that earnings are held in trust for you so become taxable income at the point they are declared payable, not when you withdraw them.

MollyR

elsien said:

I just added that not all prolific bonuses are for a random draw. Most of them are payment per completing X number of entries over Y amount of time As an encouragement to fill in a daily diary, for example.
Or an additional payment where a study has taken longer than expected.
I would count those “bonuses“ as payment for the study. It doesn’t compare to a lottery or a prize  draw.

Yes, I agree completely.  That is why I said 'Where I can be certain, I exclude the bonuses which would come under the heading of "draws" rather than "earnings"'.  Sorry if this wasn't clear to anybody!

here_for_the_tips

Oh to be earning close to £1k a year from Prolific Be amazed if I can hit £500 in 12 months. Still waiting on the AI studies to hit my studies screen.

snowwhyte

Anyone else tried the new social post ai task? 

elsien

I don’t think I’ve seen that one. 

An hour long one came up about learning different tasks, but my head was exploding after a day of work, so I didn’t do it. 

snowwhyte

I hope the social post Ai studies become a regular thing. Decent pay, multiple submissions and not too difficult. 

onemouseplace

Not seen here either - shame as they sound good!  Fact checking seems deader than a dodo at the moment.  I have had one or two of the AI video checking tasks a day, but you definitely need to be on Prolific a lot to pick them up.