AIBU to have given unwanted advice

[GarageRoofLeak]

My sibling has decided to go self employed in order to get off benefits. The job requires a lot of up front expenditure and many further expenses which they have been told they can claim as business expenses for the purposes of tax. However, they seem to think that claiming expenses means they will be refunded the full amount by HMRC. I have tried several times to explain that this is not what happens. They have budgeted as though they will be getting all this money back and already made some fairly big business purchases.
When I broached the subject they became very hostile, claimed I was trying to sabotage their job (by explaining how tax and expenses work) and has now blocked all contact with me.
Was I unreasonable to give them factual information about tax? They insisted I was “lying”. Funnily enough, after a bit of googling, I can see that many people do seem to believe they get their expenses paid back in full, if self employed. Is anyone actually in self-employment and receiving reimbursement for business expenses rather than a reduction in tax?!
Was I unreasonable to explain tax to them when they didn’t ask for my advice?

There are many siblings that aren’t close. We don’t live in the same country for a start and haven’t done for 30 years. This sibling has no reason to not trust me other than they think someone with a business degree, a business adviser in fact, knows more about tax than I do. They fail to realise they have misunderstood the advice they were given. They stubbornly would not be told.

No nothing fraudulent.

YANBU. No one wants unsolicited advice but this is a situation where it was the right thing to do, also it was sharing knowledge not advice as such. It would be a much worse thing if you quietly watched them make disastrous financial decisions knowing they were misinformed.

There's obviously a lot more to this. People don't normally accuse family of lying for passing on knowledge or giving advice.

They wouldnt tell you I imagine

or even know they were doing so!

They fail to realise they have misunderstood the advice they were given. They stubbornly would not be told.

People really don't like being told they are wrong, and take it as an implied insult. That's the long and the short of it really.

You didn’t give unwanted advice once or twice, you gave it multiple times.

Despite not being close; despite not even living in the UK for 3 decades.

Thick skin you have there OP

Huh? I was trying to help. We speak on the phone (at least did until this week) almost every night. Who said anyone didn’t live in the uk?!
so if your own sibling was making a large financial mistake and kept repeating it, you’d correct them once and then stay quiet from there on, knowing they planned to spend a very large amount of money and thinking they would get it back from HMRC? If they were not a person I care about I would not have bothered.

You OP, you said you don’t live in the UK
And your sibling clearly does

They will learn

But I would send them a simple link with the info you've given them, if you can bear sending an email.

Nope, I didn’t say they didn’t trust me other than in this situation. I said we weren’t close in location.

Where did I say I didn’t live in the Uk?

Why are you trying to pick holes in what I have said? I stated that I was trying to be deliberately vague to protect my sibling’s identity.

OP didn't say she didn't live in the UK?!
It's far more likely that both OP and sibling are in the UK, seeing that we are talking about HMRC. Just different countries.

Just don’t pick up the pieces when it all goes to shit!

The OP has carefully and deliberately used the terms 'they' and 'them' to describe their sibling throughout.

You are referring to the sibling as 'she', whilst at the same time you are trying to catch the OP out by finding inconsistencies in the OP's posts. Whoops.

I was really hoping this would be a major step forward for them. They have been dealt enough blows in life. I won’t be picking up any financial mess but I will be supportive, if they apologise.

They are going to feel like a complete fool, but won't want to lose face and admit to you that they were wrong by apologising to you.

So just give them support anyway. Least said, soonest mended.

You are being a little unreasonable- there’s telling people and there’s continuing to push. People rarely listen if they’ve had someone official tell them something else- not good but they’ll figure it out and hopefully pivot from there

I have learned my lesson. I tell people once and leave it. It's not my job to police them. After that I generally support them. My dm also drops in the PA line "but you must know more about it than me"

I couldn’t sit back and watch them make a big mistake. I thought some examples and links to HMRC website would have helped them understand, rather than me just telling them. Backfired!

they threw some nasty accusations at me regarding my motives for telling them facts of tax, and pretty firm on calling me a liar.

the reason for their reaction is because they think I am lying and for nefarious reasons,

There are many siblings that aren’t close

Kind of points to the pair of you not being close 😆

Were you correct in your understanding of business expenses? Yes

Were you unreasonable to keep on saying multiple times that your sibling was wrong, to the extent that they have now felt the need to BLOCK you? Yes

You should have said it once
You should have sent over the link clarifying precisely the (very simple) situation

But there does come a point, when you have repeated the same advice time and time and time again - and your sibling has disagreed, whereby you do have to accept this is an adult.

and now your sibling has decided they’ve just had enough and want nothing more to do with you

and instead of being worried about that. You just want mumsnet to tell you that you’re RIGHT.

well yes, your are RIGHT in your understanding. Happy?

Oh dear. You weren't wrong to try to be helpful but they are clearly feeling a lot of shame at their pretty stupid mistake. This is not going to end well.....if you have a slightly malicious streak you could get the popcorn out.......

Is 4crackers your sibling? Because they seem mightily angry with you 😂😂😂