UK tax/benefits advice?

[Heathen1989]

Sorry to bore you with the question that must crop up constantly. Im thinking about webcamming soon but Im thinking more of a irregular thing, for just a spare few pound here or there (nothing major, just like £50 here or there if i can manage it) come christmas etc. I've cammed for free before so I know the gist of it. I'm currently on income support, child tax credits and dla for someone i care for. Does anyone know if these will clash?. I've had a quick look and it only really seems to say if your earning only over a certain percentage that it will interefere. Im hoping to change from income support to carers allowance as soon as possible so I dont know if that will affect it?. I've honestly been looking all this up but my brain is frazzled with websites saying different and I cant seem to understand.
Also as far as i can tell you have to declare any income to hmrc is this correct? , even if its a one off every few months of a small amount?. Would being classed as self employed affect the benefits at this rate?. Is there a way you can class the camming as something else on the hmrc forms?. Im sick of the benefits office looking down at me and the last thing I want them to do is bring up camming. I'm not a thin or confident person so i would feel like they can totally tell im not model or performer material, and feel like they would automatically know im camming. Are there other benefits that are affected by camming?(ie council tax reduction, housing benefits)

I know the answer is probably theres no way around the camming and still receiving benefits, i was just hoping someone could advise me on a work around, or an alternative. I would love to pursue it completely rather than be back and for to the benefits office but until my child is in full time school i cant really, and i'd rather get a "taster" than drop all benefits and realise its not for me as me and my daughter really need some sort of income and keep my council house over my head. She is 4 and has complex needs and autism so I need things to be pretty consistent.

 

[Zoomer]

You may be best off asking at forums more specific to benefits/DLA and having temporary or self employed work. The issue you have is benefits vs self employed unknown wage. Camgirl is... incidental; immaterial. How the money is earned is irrelevant!

However, there may be several in same position and or better knowable than me in commenting here as well.

All i'd say is that UK benefits tend to be sliding scale. You can earn up to 40k before Child Benefits start to (on a sliding scale) vanish. I don't think DLA can be removed (it's to offset cost of being disabled) and your income support helps low income - so if you had a good income from camming you'd eventually lose it, yes, but that's as it should be. I don't think it's a case of "OMFG you earned £20 this month so no benefits at all".

 

[MiaFoxUK]

Even if you earn £10 as a mystery shopper you MUST declare it and they will find out if you dont. The UK is trialling some email scanning stuff and they are going after people. Not the big corporations of course, they are going after people like us

 

[penfold_43]

The forum at "Moneysavingexpert" has a set of subforums dedicated to work and benefits, including one titled "benefits and tax credits" and there are some posters that understand the way things are calculated very well, and generally they are very helpful. It is really worth reading there and asking, you can just say "self employed" if you don't want to say exactly what you do.

The following is my understanding, but I'm not an expert so shouldn't be relied upon! Hopefully it will at least give you some pointers for your own research.

Regarding CTC, this site seems clear : https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/child-tax-credit
Basically as I read it, if your household income is over £16105 you lose 41p of CTC for every extra £1 you earn (figure is different if you are claiming working tax credit as well).

DLA is being transitioned to PIP (one of my friends gets £55/week or so PIP due to her mental health problems) and this is not means tested as I understand it from her.

Income support is means tested, as you earn more it reduces (more slowly than what you earn so you're better off earning than not).

No idea about council tax or housing benefit, the general principle for means tested benefits is always the more income you have the less benefit you get (otherise I'd be able claim as well and I work full time in a fairly good job).


You must declare all earnings from work to HMRC (in full time employment your employer does this for you), so as you'll be self employed you'll have to do a tax return - my friend with MH problems I mentioned before is self employed and she managed to complete it online OK and got quite a bit of tax back from them (I offered to help as she has dyscalculia, but she did it herself without difficulty). You need to tell them as soon as you start earning money from being self-employed.

 

[Zoomer]

The UK is trialling some email scanning stuff and they are going after people.

Erm, what? Where did you hear/read/see this? I cannot see any such reports/news anywhere despite searching (for 5 minutes admittedly).

BTW filling an online tax return isn't difficult - I did one last year and I'll be doing it again this year. It took perhaps a few hours to gather up all my info (i.e. means of income) and fill it all in for the taxable period. The important thing is to start it early.

So from now until closure on Jan ... 5th? I'll be gathering and coallating all my finances from April 2016 to April 2017.

So if you were to start camming now it'll likely be Jan 2019 that you need to submit your return for. If I've counted right.