How to claim JSA

[fool]

Haven't read it all.

In my experience, I've NEVER been asked how much is left in the company. They do ask how much savings you've got though - pretty sure it wasn't as low as that last time I did it.

I guess having less than £16K savings might be a show stopper these days.

One thing - if you know there is bench/JSA time likely there is nothing stopping you declaring a dividend on the Friday (when you're still in contract) and clearing the company out, then using this to pay off credit cards/mortgage or whatever. Then monday its gone. Of course, you can't leave it in savings account...

Unethical maybe. Not getting into that one. But theres no way anyone can dictate how you choose to deal with your own finances BEFORE you claim of course.

If your company has 16k clear of liabilities and you own it 100%, you have more than 16k "savings" irregardless or whether they specifically ask you about your company so it's not something they'd need to ask directly about.

If you've been claiming and have more, it's probably likely you could be done for benefits fraud. That'd be some pretty nasty stuff.

Bit about not being elligible if you turn down an extension or another contract is complete tulipe mind.

The jobcentre staff don't know how it works so wouldnt even know to ask this. How are they going to know anyway?

My experience is they say so why are you out of work? Temp contract ended, looking for something else. Oh OK then. End of conversation.

Again, they might "not know" and they'll surely never check but you'd still be llying and thus commiting benefit fraud. I'd suggest that it's totally not worth it for JSA.

[fool]

I see, as I have just started I am not in the higher rate band yet. I will probably get there before year end though at which point I will be saving due to the limit of overpayment on my mortgage.

But even in the higher rate band, what choice do I have, unless I plan on closing the company in the near future? The money would presumably not earn anything and be useful only for closing the company or if I choose to spend a year not working much? Or am I missing something?

You can invest the money elsewhere, for example into stocks and shares, which with resonable choices (index funds, don't try to pick stocks) would hopefully net you more than your mortgage interest rate and won't come with the higher band hit. Of course, all you can really do is keep building this money for retirement, but that's something you should probably be doing.

That said I only have like £6k savings because I overpay too. It's hardly the end of the world as if I lost my contract, I'd just stop spending on anything non-essential. But unless I'm misunderstanding something basic, the compound interest isn't the most important fact, you should be paying back whatever the highest interest rate is first unless you can earn more interest that debt costs you elsewhere. The reason you treat your mortgage differently is because the rates can go up in the future and thus paying it down now is protecting you from future rate hikes.

Anyways NLUK is right though, it's probably a bad move to pull out at the higher rate to pay off a 3% loan and after you've been contracting for a while you'll probably end up with over 16k assets fairly easily because leaving within your means and defering income is pretty much the biggest advantage of being a contractor.

[northernladuk]

The other two have said most of it. The over confidence in surviving on 8k and not being on the bench is a worry though. You've seen the thread on a quiet market etc. Your war chest should be your number one priority and the mortgage second else should the worst happen you will have a very torrid time. Don't forget you get no pay if you get injured as well.

Seen plenty of guys being over confident and then spending months worrying they are going to lose their house. They don't last long in contracting.

[psychocandy]

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.

Not my experience at all. No need to close company down all you need is a P45. Whether you choose to claim or not is up to you - not getting into that one again.

Never heard of them asking for bank statements etc. Obviously, you have to tell the truth on the forms - if you lie thats your lookout.

Sanctions? Never heard of that happening to anyone who actually makes an effort. I found the job centre pretty good to be honest. They know that you're looking and will leave you alone for the most part. They've got enough trouble with scrotes who dont want to work.

Yes after a few months they will want to review whats going on. But its all about getting you back into work.

They know that its pretty stupid to try and force you to work in tescos stacking shelves wen A) they can get someone more appropriate and B) they know that in time you'll sort yourself out anyway.

I never had any trouble off 99% of the jobcentre staff with stuff like this. I daresay eventually they might have started talking about alternatives but then I'd probably be thinking about it myself too!

End of the day though. If they say right take this job sweeping the car park at Asda or your benefits stop then its your decision as to what is best. Take the job or don't and carry on looking for a contract. Nothing lost.

[MrMarkyMark]

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

What do you mean by overpaid, you seem to have an obsession with what IT people earn?

All you need to know it is, often, a lot more than contract engineers

Please note the 16K figure being discussed was in the company AND savings.
It could be that the liabilities of that company could be more than 16K, in the worst instance.

As usual you are applying a perm style mentality to all of this.

[MrMarkyMark]

Not my experience at all. No need to close company down all you need is a P45. Whether you choose to claim or not is up to you - not getting into that one again.

Never heard of them asking for bank statements etc. Obviously, you have to tell the truth on the forms - if you lie thats your lookout.

Sanctions? Never heard of that happening to anyone who actually makes an effort. I found the job centre pretty good to be honest. They know that you're looking and will leave you alone for the most part. They've got enough trouble with scrotes who dont want to work.

Yes after a few months they will want to review whats going on. But its all about getting you back into work.

They know that its pretty stupid to try and force you to work in tescos stacking shelves wen A) they can get someone more appropriate and B) they know that in time you'll sort yourself out anyway.

I never had any trouble off 99% of the jobcentre staff with stuff like this. I daresay eventually they might have started talking about alternatives but then I'd probably be thinking about it myself too!

End of the day though. If they say right take this job sweeping the car park at Asda or your benefits stop then its your decision as to what is best. Take the job or don't and carry on looking for a contract. Nothing lost.

Maybe, they are a little more slack in the valleys.

[psychocandy]

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

Entitled to your opinion.....

I'm going to start running a travel company. Its going to be called "Valley Scroat Tours".

Its going to tour jobcentres in the south wales valleys (especially merthryr!) and give some of you an insight into exactly what goes on. You'll get first hand experience of people who are unemployable, have never worked, never intend to, do anything they can to play the system.

Then we'll visit they're houses and see the nice TVs they've got, see their stash of fags, and booze. Then we'll visit the tattoo parlour where they get all their tats done. All paid for by you the tax payer because they're never going to pay any tax themselves.

Might not be upset then when you hear about contractors who legitimately claim it for a few months and then go back to paying tax to pay for these scroats.

[psychocandy]

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.

Yes thats the worrying thing that they might see £20K in the business account and say there we go then. Even though that £20K might already be tax and/or VAT money and there is in fact £0 in there.

Wouldnt put it past them....

[MrMarkyMark]

Reading this, I'm staggered how close to the wind that people like to operate.

Maybe, they have only seen the good times?
I can assure you when the financial crisis hit, it was not pretty.
I'm glad I had a lot more than an 8K warchest then.

[pr1]

Entitled to your opinion.....

I'm going to start running a travel company. Its going to be called "Valley Scroat Tours".

Its going to tour jobcentres in the south wales valleys (especially merthryr!) and give some of you an insight into exactly what goes on. You'll get first hand experience of people who are unemployable, have never worked, never intend to, do anything they can to play the system.

Then we'll visit they're houses and see the nice TVs they've got, see their stash of fags, and booze. Then we'll visit the tattoo parlour where they get all their tats done. All paid for by you the tax payer because they're never going to pay any tax themselves.

Might not be upset then when you hear about contractors who legitimately claim it for a few months and then go back to paying tax to pay for these scroats.

I know, I've also seen both series of benefit's street

don't get me wrong, benefit cheats are more than awful, but I don't accept the eternal argument of "well XXX is doing something worse than me, therefore, what I'm doing is justified"