£0 Universal Credit Self Employed

oompapa

peteuk said:

oompapa said:

peteuk said:

oompapa said:

kaMelo said:

The work allowance rules are the same whether employed or self-employed. I should have added that caveat to the calculation I gave but that is not the only one.

It would be helpful if the OP could lay out their circumstances and their UC calculation to see whether it was correct or not.

Thank you very much. We have two children but no child care costs and have a mortgage so no rent allowance. No disabilities. So am I right in assuming that nobody gets UC as presumably everyone in work earns at least minimum wage and everyone in business is assumed to be earning minimum wage. This is where my confusion lies - why does UC exist if no one can actually claim it? I feel like I must be missing something really obvious here - so forgive me if I’m coming across as stupid!

Many thanks again for replying.

UC is there to help those who are not working full time and so not earning the minimum/living wage.  Those who cant work or who are limited in their capcity to work. Those who are currently not working. 

It helps provide those claimants various additional help, housing, child care ect. 

In your case you had a years start up where you were allowed to earn any amount and claim.   UC is not there to prop up your flagging self employment. If you have earnt nothing from it this assessment period then I would consider it might be time to do something else. Or its time to look at the good periods to protect the bad.  Either way what ever you are entitled to via UC is obviously being zero'd by the minimum floor.  This is due to your circumstance eg married, home owner etc 

I was waiting for the ‘not there to prop up your flagging self employment’ comment. I really just needed the facts not belittling judgement. Our business is doing ok most of the time. We’re not well off but we’re ok with that at the moment. And I agree that the government should not ‘top up’ what we don’t earn that we could as an employee, I just wanted to make sure I understood everything correctly and hadn’t missed something.

Thanks for our clairification. Appreciated. 

It’s not my judgement it’s UCs judgement.  Its factual as in the minimum floor is there to ensure that those who are self employed do so to a standard of living,  because if they didn’t wed all be self employed and claiming UC.  Six £0 assessment periods and your UC claim will stop.

UC looks at monthly assessment periods, so what happens if your self employment is seasonal?  UC will suggest you find a job to bolster your income,Spoonie_Turtle said:

peteuk said:

oompapa said:

kaMelo said:

The work allowance rules are the same whether employed or self-employed. I should have added that caveat to the calculation I gave but that is not the only one.

It would be helpful if the OP could lay out their circumstances and their UC calculation to see whether it was correct or not.

Thank you very much. We have two children but no child care costs and have a mortgage so no rent allowance. No disabilities. So am I right in assuming that nobody gets UC as presumably everyone in work earns at least minimum wage and everyone in business is assumed to be earning minimum wage. This is where my confusion lies - why does UC exist if no one can actually claim it? I feel like I must be missing something really obvious here - so forgive me if I’m coming across as stupid!

Many thanks again for replying.

UC is there to help those who are not working full time and so not earning the minimum/living wage.  Those who cant work or who are limited in their capcity to work. Those who are currently not working. 

Actually it's there for anyone the government deems to be on a low income relative to their circumstances, without other means to support themselves (pension income, savings/capital).  This includes people who work full-time and are still entitled to some financial support via UC.

Please note I did go further and suggest that their circumstances or lack of (housing ect) hat gives them a basic UC payment.

Thanks. We didn’t actually get six assessment periods as our business isn’t new. But anyway - it is what it is and we just have to move on. We work extremely hard but we’re in a very time consuming, hands on kind of business. We’re not in any way trying to fleece the system. Not sure what more we can do other than charge more but that’s for another thread. 

Thanks again

huckster

Is there any local self-employment business advice/support service ?  In most areas, the local Council Authority website will have details of local self-employment support.  These are generally provided by local organisations.

I have dealt with self-employment for a number of years and I find that many people just don't understand the value of the work they are doing. They worry too much about losing clients if they put their prices up.  I have seen cases, where business owners have been going to their local food banks regularly, while clients of the business have been taking advantage of well below market rates.  

oompapa

huckster said:

Is there any local self-employment business advice/support service ?  In most areas, the local Council Authority website will have details of local self-employment support.  These are generally provided by local organisations.

I have dealt with self-employment for a number of years and I find that many people just don't understand the value of the work they are doing. They worry too much about losing clients if they put their prices up.  I have seen cases, where business owners have been going to their local food banks regularly, while clients of the business have been taking advantage of well below market rates.  

Thank you for this. I think we do have a few organisations we could contact locally. Our business is fairly niche though and they’re are so many complicated reasons we have ‘off’ months. Just as an example, google ranking can drop our enquiries significantly. We put hours of work into website optimisation. Work that takes us away from our actual paid work and even after that effort, we can drop back down to 10th on the search results for seemingly no reason. In terms of charging, we do worry about losing clients and if we actually charged for all the hours we work, we would be loaded. However, realistically, people simply wouldn’t seek our services beyond a certain amount. But I absolutely see your point as we certainly are potential candidates for food banks the way things are going. Wish me luck and thanks again.