Reply to: About contractors & benefits

[psychocandy]

Paying inappropriate salary to someone - taking the piss.
Claiming JSA as a contractor - taking the piss.

How many more times?

Difference between rules/law and opinion.

[TheFaQQer]

BIG DIFFERENCE

Paying inappropriate salary to someone is not allowed and HMRC will ask you to justify it.

Claiming JSA as a contractor is perfectly legal, above board, allowed. How many times?

Paying inappropriate salary to someone - taking the piss.
Claiming JSA as a contractor - taking the piss.

How many more times?

[psychocandy]

Why would you apply that to your company and not to JSA?

BIG DIFFERENCE

Paying inappropriate salary to someone is not allowed and HMRC will ask you to justify it.

Claiming JSA as a contractor is perfectly legal, above board, allowed. How many times?

[TheFaQQer]

Why would you apply that to your company and not to JSA?

One man's meat is another man's poison.

[Pondlife]

PC's mum is in the news.

Linky

[tractor]

OK maybe too wide ranging a statement. Its not clever to pay your wife a salary of say £10K when, in effect, she does bugger all or a bit of filing.

My understanding is that any salary needs to be appropriate for the work actually done. i.e. dont take the piss.

Why would you apply that to your company and not to JSA?

[psychocandy]

And the basis for that is what exactly?

OK maybe too wide ranging a statement. Its not clever to pay your wife a salary of say £10K when, in effect, she does bugger all or a bit of filing.

My understanding is that any salary needs to be appropriate for the work actually done. i.e. dont take the piss.

[TheFaQQer]

I think you'll find paying your wife a salary is not clever thing to do.

And the basis for that is what exactly?

[d000hg]

Psycho - do you not have income protection insurance?

You mean for things like redundancy? No. To be honest its a grey area and I dont think you'd get this past an insurance company. i.e. own company just made myself redundant etc.

I thought there was a form of income protection one could take out as a contractor, but it would presumably only cover unexpected lack of income i.e. contract cut short, not benched between contracts.

[psychocandy]

You employ your Mrs, don't you? Have you considered laying her off for 6 months each year, and doubling her salary for the other 6 months to maximise the benefits she can claim?

Nope but she is a shareholder and director. And has her own job anyway.

I think you'll find paying your wife a salary is not clever thing to do.

[PurpleGorilla]

You employ your Mrs, don't you? Have you considered laying her off for 6 months each year, and doubling her salary for the other 6 months to maximise the benefits she can claim?

You're fired, now get your @ss down the dole office, then cook my dinner!

[mudskipper]

Fair play. Its a personal choice.

It just rips my tulip when people on here have a dig about it as if you're doing the crime of the century when its all perfectly legal and above board.

You employ your Mrs, don't you? Have you considered laying her off for 6 months each year, and doubling her salary for the other 6 months to maximise the benefits she can claim?

[SueEllen]

Like I said 'tis the greyest area on a grey day in greyland.....

That's not a grey area as a certain number of businesses fail each year.

The economy needs people to take risks and the government gives people a safety net.

[psychocandy]

Thinking about it - my policy is personal injury etc.... Not for being out of work.

I would do anything if I was in the tulip (dole office), but I would look to stack shelves first in the way.

Yeh different. I suspect if you tried to claim for redunancy from a company that you own you'd not get very far. Its probably in the t+cs.

Note, just to confirm, if you claim JSA the jobcentre will leave you alone for months. They're not that stupid. i.e. You won't be beating them off trying to give you jobs working in tesco. They realise its better for everyone if they give you a chance to go back doing what you normally do.

[psychocandy]

PC, I don't doubt the legality of it, but it's not about that for me. When I decided to become a contractor I knew what I was signing up to, bench time included, and it is quite different to what a factory worker signs up to. To me JSA is not for contractors between contracts.

Fair play. Its a personal choice.

It just rips my tulip when people on here have a dig about it as if you're doing the crime of the century when its all perfectly legal and above board.