AIBU for considering lying about working an extra hour so i can claim WTC?

[Lowla]

Name change as i don't want to be forever frowned upon on here...

Job hunting is not going well. Almost everything requires me to be fully flexible, which is just not feasable due to childcare issues. Either that or i need to be able to work at 6am in the morning or up until 8pm at night, again, not feasible for childcare reasons.

An employer has just got back to me regarding an old application i made to her for cleaning.

It's only 15 hours but is the same shifts each week, thus making childcare easier.

However, i won't be able to afford childcare unless i work at least 16 hours and get WTC.

If i work 15 hours, i'll still need to claim IS and pay for transport, childcare from my benefit - and also only be allowed to keep £20 of my wages. This would just about cover the transport.

AIBU to lie about working an extra hour (employer has said there's no option to get an extra hour in this role) until u can find another cleaning job for an hour a week?

I probably already know the answer. But i'm desperate.

It does seem a silly rule. Good idea of somebody's to get the extra hour from somewhere else. Work for your sister or Mother or do ironing like somebody else suggested.

The reason that employers WANT to keep you on under 16 hours is that lots of employment rights and costs to employers kick in as soon as you hit 16 hours.

And Vivienne to comply with tax credits, the work will have to be taxed through self assessment - it cannot be informal, and unless HMRC deem it a proper employment they may debar it under the artificial loss protection rules that have been in place for many years (members.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=talkinpeace - see box 2)

Thanks talkin I knew there must be a reason as I've seen various mentions of 15 hour limits. I wonder if the arse will ever talk to the elbow on this matter!

The arse being the benefits system and the elbow employment law..,

I really feel for you, and I also feel cross at your Dad. If I had a business where I could employ people, I wouldn't hesistate to give one of my children a job if they were struggling to find something. Even if it meant, shock, less profit or take home pay for me.

"The reason that employers WANT to keep you on under 16 hours is that lots of employment rights and costs to employers kick in as soon as you hit 16 hours."

What kicks in, TalkinPeace? Everything I can think of is related to earnings per week, rather than hours. I can't think of anywhere that HMRC ask how many hours our employees earn at all.

(We're in a similar situation in that one of our employees asked to work 16 hours instead of 15 for a proportionally reduced hourly rate. Since its still well over min wage we said absolutely yes please!)

Sorry, obviously that should be 'how many hours our employees work - of course they want to know how much they earn!

I also don't think they've yet enforced the thing of having to earn the minimum wage as self employed, certainly not here in Wales.

I've had some correspondence with our MP about it (because tax credits are so important for lots of people starting up businesses, and since our county has a very high rate of self employment then removing aid to start ups would have a bad effect here). I got the strong impression from him that it would be something that came in with the Universal Credit - and therefore the sorting out of the hours threshold problem.

Takver
employment tribunal, certain holiday and maternity and SSP rights only start after the 16 hour limit is reached

AND from next April, HMRC will be making you submit EVERY week exactly who has worked for how long as well as for how much.

P35's and P14s will be a thing of the past.

I really feel for you op, but don't lie, whatever you do. The lunchtime supervisor suggestions would be good of your cleaning job weren't 12-3. I'd hang on to your cleaning job and look for a cleaning agency who might take you on for a 9.30-11.30 slot. One day a week cleaning one house and you'd be there.

HMRC are not interested if you are in Wales - RTI is for the whole of the UK
www.hmrc.gov.uk/rti/index.htm

Accept the job & then advertise to private clean = one more hour a week & you can legitimately claim WTC. It does make me cross though hyow employers get 16 hours worth of work for 15 hours though, making their wage bill artificially low.

If you can get away with lying then I see nothing wrong with it. It depends on your chances of getting caught.

I would take the job and try to find something else to do to make up the extra hour such as house cleaning, baby sitting, ebaying, ironing, delivering newspapers or leaflets as suggested by others.

Anything to make up the extra hour and get something on your CV for the future

Good luck op

op yanbu to concider it but you would be bu to do it.

that said purely on tax credit rules alone you dont have to be employed by the same employer for the entire 16 hours. if you work at nmw 16 hours is not enough to mean you pay any ni or tax.as it is below the threshold.

however if you have at least 1 child work 16 hours at nmw you are also able to recive hb this creates an issue because whilst tc work out your hours over the tax year hb go week by week so say you did 15 hours each week but an additional shift one day a month to make sure you hit the 16 hours then tc wont have an issue but hb will chop and change your hb every week.

also if i employ any person who i know earns under the threashold for any type of tax for 1 hour a week at nmw or less if the job is exempt then providing you and i fill in the correct paperwork no rules are being broken as long as any income they recive from me means they are still under the threashold.

as long as you actually work for the hour a week and its paid work and its not a 'just say i do' suituation.

phone tax credits and directly ask them if you can do this they will say yes. (it may take you about 25 mins to get through as thats how long it just took me as i wanted to check what i was saying is correct)

so say you lived near me and the same suituation applyed then i am perfectly at liberty to offer you a 1 hour a week paid job even if that job is just paying for your company for an hour or you washing my dishes sorting, out my socks, being a jester.

the advice i was given was keep a trail of wages such as a weekly payment on a bank statement and keep a record of the date and time of each hours work. also record the date time of the call and any identifying info the advisor gives you just incase at a later date they challenge you. they also said you may need to register as self employed.

if you live anywhere near me im very happy to give you an hour a week work

Off topic, but would love to have my own jester...

one lives a few doors up from me hes brilliant often entertains the dc's by juggling and fire breathing whilst on a one wheeled bike

Thanks for the link TiP - I've always thought the system of reporting only at the end of the year was mad.

I see this:

"The first FPS should also include the hours normally worked, that is, the number of hours a person is expected or regularly works in a week."

but I can't see anywhere in their info what you do with employees who work casual hours as needed or who are paid on piecework - you don't happen to have a link that covers that, do you?

The system of declaring hours and earnings per week is ludicrous if you are self employed - it doesn't take into account the nature of many businesses.

In my SE I could spend a working week spending 3 days going to speculative meetings with possible clients, 1 day doing my admin and 1 day doing a days work for £100.

The next week one of those meetings could have paid off and I'm theoretically working a four day week for £3k. Or a 5 day week for £450. Or I could do another week like last week. I just don't know.

So earnings for the first FT week = £100 for 40 hrs work, seeing as at no point in the week did I think oh sod it I wont work today I'll go to the park instead. I could have 8 weeks like that - not being eligible for WTC - and then weeks that I am well over the threshold.

I might still only clear £15000 gross a year which in my profession believe it or not is not doing too badly. Perhaps WTC will reassess based on my filed SE return, who knows. But I can't rely on WTC to top up my income when it is low, only retrospectively.

Similarly my SE working variation means its pretty much impossible for me to claim HB, CT benefit or unemployment benefit for any periods I don't have any work at all. Of course none of these can be claimed at the end of the year.

The WTC system - actually the whole benefit system -is totally rigged against people in SE - at least previously you could declare that you worked FT and that your income was x and be believed.

Takver
on here www.hmrc.gov.uk/rti/employerfaqs.htm
there is mention of the "irregular payment indicator" which needs to be set per employee.
Some of the posters on this forum www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=fe597ff8bcaa8fb17efa0412da4588db&f=55
are involved with the RTI Pilot - they have gone very quiet of late ....

OP
SAdly you are caught in a political trap that this government wants to MASSIVELY reduce the benefits bill and slicing out individual tax credit families is an easy way for them to do it.

What about including travelling time as part of your working week? Could you not say to your employer that you would pay for cleaning materials if they say that you work 16 hours a week. I really think this is something that can be worked out between you and your employer.

Quod
there is a VERY clear intention to remove many self employed from the tax credits system - they plan to make the hoops harder and the upper cutoff lower so that we give up on the claims.
fushia
No employer would do that because of existing employment law

Thanks, TiP. I wasn't sure that that was quite appropriate - our employees are paid regularly, just not a set amount - and of course those doing piece work not by the hour. Actually the former is probably ok as I see they just want a band rather than exact hours, and they probably are pretty safely within one band. Not sure what they'll want us to do about piece work - maybe divide by a notional hourly rate, though that would be open to abuse I would imagine. No doubt they will tell us in time

I do think that trying to cut self employed tax credit claims is short sighted - I know plenty of people - including us - who wouldn't have got their businesses established without help from tax credits. We only needed help for a little while, and now we not only employ ourselves (and of course pay taxes) but have several other employees too.

I did think though that the 16 hours cut off was going with Universal credit. A shame if it doesn't, there must be plenty of people in the OP's situation who have little choice but to stay on IS.

"Takver
employment tribunal, certain holiday and maternity and SSP rights only start after the 16 hour limit is reached"

TalkinPeace Sorry to come back to this, but I'm a bit confused. Our 15 hour per week employee was eligible for SSP, maternity pay etc (I know because she had a baby and as the first time I'd done all this I had to check it all out with HMRC & rang them loads). I've looked and looked on the DirectGov website, and the criteria all seem to be about earning more than the NI lower limit.

I've also been reading up on the unfair dismissal pages etc on Business Link and can't see anything at all about 16 hours as a cut off.

Could you point me in the direction of some govt. links that show what is affected by the cut-off - its relevant as we have people working both over & under so don't want to do the wrong thing if they get sick, for example.

ive spent ages looking for formal info (not just news reports but actual stuff from a benefits agency/ gov site or respected welfare advisor charity) regarding the lone parent 16 hours being increased, and i cant find it if anybody happens to come across it please please tell me where they saw it.