Why do Universal Credit want me and my partner to confirm previous earnings from work?

TimeLord1

HillStreetBlues said:

That has me wondering Is a Amazon gift card capital or earnings under UC? as Amazon will have the money and they then supply a voucher (the gift card) to be redeemed against the product they sell. 

Technically no it's a gift card like a voucher but if it was cashed into bank then yes. But some people on another forum done lots of surveys weekly earning considerable amounts but thought nothing of it. 

But as @newcad stated even government departments gave incentives for information.

Newcad

HillStreetBlues said:

That has me wondering Is a Amazon gift card capital or earnings under UC? as Amazon will have the money and they then supply a voucher (the gift card) to be redeemed against the product they sell. 

Mmm, Despite the name it isn't gift, it's remuneration for work done.
It isn't even a 'voucher' because it's a money value deposited into an account, a value which can then be used to purchase anything from any supplier that sells things on Amazon

It can't be regarded as 'payment-in-kind' because it isn't 'in-kind'; it's a money value deposited into an account.

Refering to the ADM chapter H3.'Earned Income - Employed Earnings'. Section H3004 (1.3) and explanatory note.

Such surveys would certainly be "work done for payment or in expectation of payment", so the remuneration from doing them would be Earned Income

Treat it like a deposit into your bank? deposited at the date that you register it to your Amazon account.
ie. Earnings when first available to spend. Becoming capital if not spent by the end of the next full AP?

Personally if I was regularly doing surveys for which I got rewarded then I would now be declaring those rewards, whatever form they were in, to UC as earnings.

The DWP may not have been paying much attention to Amazon, PayPay, and other similar accounts up to now, but with the continued and increasing witch-hunt for 'benefit fraudsters' I have no doubt that they are or will be in their sights now as a place where fraudsters could try to hide money.