Income 14k universal credit?

[Namechanger1002]

If you earned £14k in a year as a single person living alone would you be entitled to universal credit?

www.betteroffcalculator.co.uk/calculator/new/step1

This is a good calculator

Yes but they will likely push you to work more hours if you aren't full time employed and don't have young children/illness/disability.

Too many variables, but it is possible. For example if you had rent to pay, children, health issues, caring responsibilities...

Thank you but I have tried the calculators - unfortunately I don’t have enough information to complete it.

Sorry just seen living alone but it is still possible to earn £14k and get UC.

My child’s dad. Declared £14k last year. Self employed plasterer. Claimed no UC or any benefits - according to child maintenance. But constantly let my dc down and didn’t see him due to earning ‘all the hours’. The sums don’t add up to me just wondered if I was missing something. He lives alone, no dependents apart from our dc who he is supposed to see 4 nights a month.

If I rented a 1 bed flat in my area on that wage I'd be entitled to £117 per week (£509 per month) in UC.

But that might vary depending on your LHA rates.

He rents a 1 bedroom house in Derby (that his brother purchased this year)

He’ll be doing cash in hand. Infuriating

It depends what the LHA is for your area, and how much he actually pays in rent. Renting from family can complicate things though.

I agree that he's probably working cash in hand.

My ex quite often can't see the dc because he's working, yet according to the cms has an income of less than £7 per week.

Yep cash in had therefore depriving his own child and also all that unpaid tax and as much as everyone bangs on about Amazon the amount of unpaid tax by people like your ex is actually far larger than most people realise.

Sorry you have such a git of an ex by the way.

It won’t be UC, he’s just not putting most of his work through the books.

It’s just so infuriating. I work full time for not much above minimum wage (I get tax credits and child benefit that I am grateful for) and I pay for everything but I just can’t see how anyone (ie child maintenance or hmrc) thinks he is surviving on £14k considering his outgoings! So pissed off. I assumed at £14k he would be entitled to something and the fact he doesn’t receive anything makes me think it is going in his back pocket.
Plus - how shit do you have to be as a plasterer to only earn £14k?! I messaged other plasterers in his area and they were quoting £450 a day and said they were booked up for ages!

It would depend if you have rent to pay and how much that rent is.

same my ex a scaffolder says he earns £170 a week for cms purposes

funnily 15 yrs ago he was earning over £700 a week,has never wanted to see his son either

and there is bugger all i can do about it

Of course it doesn't add up. He's either doing a lot of cash in hand work, is really slow and inefficient or he's massively under pricing himself.

Almost certainly the first one, he's evading tax as well as dodging his parental responsibilities.

He probably doesn't claim UC because, as well as not actually needing the money, it would flag up the absurdity of the situation and make it more likely to trigger a tax investigation.

HMRC aren't stupid, they know how much tradespeople can earn and how easy it can be to underdeclare their income, they just don't have the resources to properly investigate tens of thousands of self employed people who claim to be toiling away for a pittance.

He will be taking some money as cash in hand, however I know (from being with a tradesman myself how expensive the business is to run.

My DP charges £250 per day plus materials but by the time we take his business expenses off for his tax return (phone, van, multiple insurances, fuel, accountancy fees etc) it added up to £18,500 last year (and that was me paying for half of his business fuel for the year through my salary to help boost his net profit for mortgage purposes. So a self employed persons day rate isn't the only factor in their net profit.

That said, letting the DC down and not paying for them is unacceptable regardless.