Being tax efficient

[jamesbrown]

Claiming JSA because you can't afford to support yourself is one thing - doing it as a tax dodge and money saving exercise is downright bloody pathetic.

Are you not familiar with psychocandy?

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

I didn't think it was THAT badly worded but I take your point. I was meaning the wife's salary needs to be earned/justified.

[GazCol]

Better off stop paying yourself and claiming JSA for 6 months.

Yes, potentially, you'll lose the tax free benefit of 6x £681 x 20% = £817. (Basically, assuming all money has been taken out of comapny before claiming JSA - always a good idea- then you'll have paid CT of 20% on it rather than having it later as tax free via salary).

BUT, £72 x 26 weeks of JSA = £1872.

And, if you start contract again before end of tax year you can double up salary to catch up. e.g. work apr-sep pay salary, no contract claim jsa oct-dec, so pay no salary. Back in contract jan, pay double salary (£1362) for last 3 months so total salary for year is same. No tax free income lost :-) and you've got nearly £2k in benefits whilst on the bench.

Only drawback is it does attact some tax for these three months which you have to pay. But when its all totalled when you do personal tax return it gets returned.

Done this myself - works fine.

Company has retained profits and you're claiming JSA to avoid paying tax? Couldn't that see you end up in the dock for both benefit fraud and tax evasion?

[b0redom]

Better off stop paying yourself and claiming JSA for 6 months.

Yes, potentially, you'll lose the tax free benefit of 6x £681 x 20% = £817. (Basically, assuming all money has been taken out of comapny before claiming JSA - always a good idea- then you'll have paid CT of 20% on it rather than having it later as tax free via salary).

BUT, £72 x 26 weeks of JSA = £1872.

And, if you start contract again before end of tax year you can double up salary to catch up. e.g. work apr-sep pay salary, no contract claim jsa oct-dec, so pay no salary. Back in contract jan, pay double salary (£1362) for last 3 months so total salary for year is same. No tax free income lost :-) and you've got nearly £2k in benefits whilst on the bench.

Only drawback is it does attact some tax for these three months which you have to pay. But when its all totalled when you do personal tax return it gets returned.

Done this myself - works fine.

Whilst this may technically be within the law (or not I don't know), IMO this sort of behavior puts you on a moral par with MPs claiming urine extracting expenses and benefits scroungers.

[TykeMerc]

Whilst this may technically be within the law (or not I don't know), IMO this sort of behavior puts you on a moral par with MPs claiming urine extracting expenses and benefits scroungers.

It could be argued that the way he operates is not only legally correct, but is morally acceptable as arguably he pays into the system and exploits it according to the rules when out of contract.

I don't operate the same way and I don't support the approach, but it's not in anything like the same ballpark as MP's special treatment of expenses (that would see any of us jailed for evasion if we tried) or people claiming and working at the same time.

[Ebenezer]

It could be argued that the way he operates is not only legally correct, but is morally acceptable as arguably he pays into the system and exploits it according to the rules when out of contract.

I don't operate the same way and I don't support the approach, but it's not in anything like the same ballpark as MP's special treatment of expenses (that would see any of us jailed for evasion if we tried) or people claiming and working at the same time.

I've read most of the JSA-related threads and I'm inclined to think that legal exploitation of the benefits system is perfectly acceptable. After all, most people are pretty keen on tax minimisation, and if you think of benefits as being a negative tax, it makes sense to maximise them.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

Straying off topic slightly: It does seem strange that people are willing to engage in aggressive tax planning but not aggressive benefits planning. I'm certainly one. Even in times when I could easily have claimed income support, family tax credits etc, I never. You also hear people raging against benefits cheats but have no problem pocketing a few quid from a cash job and not declaring it.