How to claim JSA

[pr1]

How to claim JSA

Plenty of people live on less than 16k a year let alone 16k for 2 months. Not everyone is an overpaid code monkey

Edit: particularly the ones likely to want to claim JSA in between contracts

[uk contractor]

IME only claim if you have used up all your personal savings & are left with enough to live on for a month or so say a thousand max.

Then tell your acountant to close your company down otherwise you must provide all the documents for the ltd company if you close it down they will not ask for any of those maybe proof its being closed down but the accounts are not relevant anymore your P45 will tell them how much PAYE you earned that's all their interested in the rest is for HMRC to decide.

DWP want to see last 6 months worth of personal bank statements & creditcards as well as any other financial statements for savings or other incomes etc etc. You sign a legal declaration if you mislead them they will prosecute & prison time is possible. You must be 100% honest about this.

After all this (takes a minimum of 4 weeks to get any money from them BTW) you will get 3 months support from them then they will if you challenge it perhaps give you 3 more months (depends on DWP area quotas as they are on a bonus scheme to throw you off or sanction you ASAP). After that they will either put you on a workfare scheme (unpaid labour for 40 hours per week) or force you to attend a pointless mandatory training scheme for your JSA money. The other option is a long term retraining scheme operated via Reed which is again full time & designed to push you into another non IT career (pointless scheme's run by low quality staff exactly as you would expect).

If you refuse they will sanction you immediately without warning they only tell you after the sanction not before. Then its 6 weeks sanctioned on a much lower JSA rate then if you still refuse whatever they want to force you on (more workfare unpaid labour or training schemes) they will sanction you again but this time its for 3 months. Then after that (you will feel & be in a bad financial situation by now) the next sanction is for 9 months I believe.

Its exactly as it sounds they do not want you to claim regardless of your financial status you will be actively encouraged/bullied/pressured to sanction yourself & or be forced into a workfare scheme (you must still look for & prove your looking for work even when sanctioned & or on the workfare scheme).

I know as this has happened to close friends/family you do not have to be an IT contractor either this applies to anyone claiming JSA its a savage/basic system designed to get you doing unpaid work if your unable to find anything yourself after 12 weeks.

Always live on all your savings (sell any luxury assets like cars etc etc) until you have no choice as the DWP option is soul destroying after 12 weeks.

[northernladuk]

Plenty of people live on less than 16k a year let alone 16k for 2 months. Not everyone is an overpaid code monkey

Edit: particularly the ones likely to want to claim JSA in between contracts

Not contractors, you are comparing apples with pears. Trying to generalise the whole population to make a point about contractors is.. well... Meh....

[pr1]

Not contractors, you are comparing apples with pears. Trying to generalise the whole population to make a point about contractors is.. well... Meh....

Just trying to get you back in touch with the average person, anyone wanting to claim JSA with anything even close to 16k in the bank is pretty awful, in my opinion

[northernladuk]

Just trying to get you back in touch with the average person, anyone wanting to claim JSA with anything even close to 16k in the bank is pretty awful, in my opinion

But we are not talking about the average person. We are talking aboit a specific subset of people namely contractors.

[SlipTheJab]

Just trying to get you back in touch with the average person, anyone wanting to claim JSA with anything even close to 16k in the bank is pretty awful, in my opinion

I'd check lost property if I were you and see if anyone has handed in your Halo..

[NibblyPig]

Never being asked but knowing its part of the process and not declaring it is fraud. Just because you werent asked is not defence when you get caught and up with a record.

If any contractor can hand on heart declare they don't have 16k in both personal and business savings really should be re-thinking what they are doing.

If they can then go ahead and claim cause you are in a bloody awful place.

I dump all my money into my mortgage and I don't keep a buffer of more than 16k, probably half that in my personal account.

Suppose it depends if money in the business earmarked for tax counts as well though, my business account contains only money that I'm not able to pull out via dividend, plus money left for tax and VAT payments. Even so combined it is probably a shade under 16k at the peak, depending on the time you look. After a mortgage payment and after HMRC scoops up the VAT it is much lower!

[northernladuk]

I dump all my money into my mortgage and I don't keep a buffer of more than 16k, probably half that in my personal account.

Suppose it depends if money in the business earmarked for tax counts as well though, my business account contains only money that I'm not able to pull out via dividend, plus money left for tax and VAT payments. Even so combined it is probably a shade under 16k at the peak, depending on the time you look. After a mortgage payment and after HMRC scoops up the VAT it is much lower!

And how much is the amount you can't pull out via dividend?. I don't think they will differentiate the difference between tax and spare money because it they never envisaged contractors would need to claim so haven't a process in place.

[NibblyPig]

And how much is the amount you can't pull out via dividend?. I don't think they will differentiate the difference between tax and spare money because it they never envisaged contractors would need to claim so haven't a process in place.

I've been taking the maximum amount of dividends, so the change is T&S, some salary for me & accountant, VAT, and corporation tax I think. I'm sure they would count it and say no to JSA, but I would rather not have JSA than go loitering around their buildings for a bit, did that a 6 years ago when I had not a penny to my name and it was awful enough.

I was just saying I don't think it's a given for a contractor to have a big pile of gold. I guess if you don't have a hefty mortgage to pay off, but it makes more sense to me to dump it in there rather than hang onto it, as long as you have enough of a war chest to get you through the winter months!

[northernladuk]

So where is your warchest then? I'm not getting something here? The 8k in your current account is your warchest?