Help with Universal Credit

mistygray

Hi

On the back of Martin's article this week about households earning under £40K potentially being entitled to Universal Credit I thought I'd see if my partner and I were entitled to any help by using the Entitledto calculator. Our situation - I work p/t (30 hours) and my partner set up his own (ltd) business 18 months ago. He's working f/t (well 12 hour days actually) but not drawing a proper salary yet (under £10K per year) so our combined earnings are well under £40K. We own our own house (mortgaged) and have no dependants living with us. The calculator says no! We are not entitled to any help :'( how can this be right?

My partner was made redundant before he set his business up and was only allowed to claim Jobseekers allowance for 6 months then it ended. We have both worked all our adult lives so I cannot understand that when we most need help (now!) there is nothing available. I'm not going to diss people who do claim benefits, but it seems so unfair that we are not entitled to anything despite being on a low income and paying tax & NI for ever.  Any advice would be very much appreciated as this is all very new to us. Thanks

mistygray

Forgot to mention, I am also a p/t student studying 1 day per week at college so I don't have the opportunity to work f/t. It's a 2 year course leading to a qualification and I started in Sept this year.

calcotti

mistygray said:

The calculator says no! We are not entitled to any help :'( how can this be right?

Your opening sentence says

mistygray said:

On the back of Martin's article this week about households earning under £40K potentially being entitled to Universal Credit 

Martin has highlighted it is worth doing a check, some will qualify, others will not.

You do not pay rent and do not have children so your maximum UC entitled is low. Therefore likely no entitlement.

As a self employed person his earnings would be calculated as the difference between business income and expenditure as reported by him each month. The amount he actually withdraws is irrelevant.

mistygray

calcotti said:

As a self employed person his earnings would be calculated as the difference between business income and expenditure as reported by him each month. The amount he actually withdraws is irrelevant.

Thanks for your reply. He's not self-employed, the company is Ltd so he is employed. Does that make a difference?

poppy12345

As you don't rent your home and have no dependant children then your maximum UC entitlement will be £525.72/month (if at least one of you is over 25). Even just on your 30 hours per week there will be no entitlement to UC.

Yes, a family earning more than you do combined may well be entitled to some UC because having children, disabilites, renting your home, all increase entitlement to UC.

Unfortunately, working all your lives doesn't automatically entitle you to any means tested benefits.

mistygray

thank you @poppy12345

I didn't mean we should be entitled, just it would be nice

whizzywoo

mistygray said:

calcotti said:

As a self employed person his earnings would be calculated as the difference between business income and expenditure as reported by him each month. The amount he actually withdraws is irrelevant.

Thanks for your reply. He's not self-employed, the company is Ltd so he is employed. Does that make a difference?

Unfortunately no it doesn't.  UC will still assess him as self employed and will want monthly figures for the limited company showing all the money coming in and all the money going out.  They will assess the difference as being his income. 

The treatment of income and expenditure will be very different to the way HMRC assess it and only limited expenditure is allowed.  There is information here on Entitled to, scroll down to the bit about the treatment of directors. 
https://www.entitledto.co.uk/help/company-directors-and-self-employment