Unemployed director

[TheMonkey]

If I am a company director, am I unemployed (legally speaking) if I give myself a P45?

[BobTheCrate]

I believe any company director with more than 50% of the shareholding is not considered an employee of that company in the eyes of the law. Reason being the company cannot exert any control over that director.

P45 or no P45.

[TheMonkey]

Interesting ... I will do some research along those lines

[xoggoth]

Agree with BTheC on the legal point.

Why are you asking? If you can find no work, being a director does not disqualify you from claiming the jobseekers allowance or other benefit.

[AtW]

I think its easy to be classed as unemployed (director or not), but claiming and getting benefits is actually another matter that Gordon Brown decided to bias in his favour.

[TheMonkey]

Yeah I'm having a break until the end of September as the wife is about to pop and there is sod all else around to do. I was thinking about going onto jobseekers until then to reclaim a bit of that tax that I paid out last year

I'm always overqualified to do the jobs they have down the job center anyway so it's a bonus free coffee and natter session at job club (rant about the downturn in the markets etc).

[hattra]

You should be able to get Jobseekers. I did back in 2002 when the last downturn came along. I had to show them that I only had sufficient money left in the company to meet its tax liabilities etc (so the company couldn't still afford to pay me a wage) and that was about it (had to produce my own P45 as well). It helped that the bloke I was dealing with used to be in IT himself and knew how contracting worked.

Mind you - Mrs hattra was still working, so all I got was a measly £54 a week for 26 weeks - after that you're on your own. When that ran out, I asked if I could stay signed-on so I could get my NI stamps paid, they first said I couldn't do it, then realised I could, but they didn't have the form I needed - I never did get one either.

[TheMonkey]

You should be able to get Jobseekers. I did back in 2002 when the last downturn came along. I had to show them that I only had sufficient money left in the company to meet its tax liabilities etc (so the company couldn't still afford to pay me a wage) and that was about it (had to produce my own P45 as well). It helped that the bloke I was dealing with used to be in IT himself and knew how contracting worked.

Mind you - Mrs hattra was still working, so all I got was a measly £54 a week for 26 weeks - after that you're on your own. When that ran out, I asked if I could stay signed-on so I could get my NI stamps paid, they first said I couldn't do it, then realised I could, but they didn't have the form I needed - I never did get one either.

I have just paid the inland revenue so I hae nothing in the account (and I have the paperwork to prove it).

Mrs Monkey is unemployed and unemployable as she's 30 weeks pregnant so that goes in our favour

I have a couple of large rolls of 20's to live off which is handy though

Such is life. I want to try and remain unemployed until after the baby has popped as it may end up being a c-section then (from previous history, a last minute emergency one) so I don't want a contract on at the time otherwise that would make life really difficult as I need to be a full time carer for both children and the wife for at least 3 weeks then. And that was a really long, badly punctuated sentence (for the pendants).

[AtW]

But do you have any savings in bank account? AFAIK Brown made some changes which are basically there to discourage savings and shaft those who pay tax and think ahead - I am talking about means testing bullcrap.

[ASB]

But do you have any savings in bank account? AFAIK Brown made some changes which are basically there to discourage savings and shaft those who pay tax and think ahead - I am talking about means testing bullcrap.

JSA is not means tested. to get anything after JSA you have to spend most of your savings.