Hi All
Just a quick question for some advice please as I’ve looked at all the direct gov advice etc and actually cant find the answer.
My partner who gets our daughters carers allowance (I work full time so and I am way above the earnings limits and I am the main earner) generally doesnt work anymore apart from the odd day self employed bit of gardening for an old lady we know etc and always under £100 a week (all legit done on self assessment etc). He’s been asked to do a couple of odd weeks labouring for someone (about 3 days each week) he knows which will be above the £128 per week limit (but obv this will go through his self assessment books). My question is as over the full year he will only actually earn about £5000 in total (plus his carers allowance money) which equates to about £96 per week over the year (within the permitted amounts). What do we do? I dont want him not to do a few days extra work as it will be good for him and whilst shes at school it doesnt affect his caring role but would they take it that thats earning and cancel out his carers even though annually hes well under the amount ? If so its not worth him actually doing it. I find it all very confusing and no definitive guidelines to follow??
Before I retired I used to receive Carer’s Allowance and I was self employed.
Every year the Carer’s Department would write to me with a big long form to complete regarding my income from self employment. I could either fill the questions asked with income and expenditure details. Or, because I had Accounts completed I could send them a copy of the accounts.
They did also want to know which expenses included any personal use.
So in effect the income was worked out as an average over the full year.
I seem to remember that the form used to come every January which was the anniversary of when I first claimed Carer’s Allowance.
How do you advise them of the self employed income at the moment?
I had a similar problem with this. I am a teacher and was doing regular part time supply work during school term time. I explained to CA helpline that over the year my pay would average out as under the threshold but they would not accept this way of calculating earnings. They would only accept weekly or monthly earnings. The only way around it for me was to be classed as an irregular earner by CA. I have to put in a claim each month and make sure I’m under the earnings threshold. When I took on some extra work to help a teacher friend who had Covid, I was not entitled to CA for that month. Having holiday pay accrued and not paid monthly also put me under the threshold. Hope this helps someone.