Times are a changing!
Many of you may or may not be aware of what is going on in British politics at the moment, but as well as the upcoming general election where we may be seeing a new Prime Minister, or even another 5 years of a new coalition (yuk!), there are also some sneaky austerity moves happening in the shadows of the economy that will seriously affect lots of entrepreneurs, self-employed single people, and creatives such as artists, sculptors, writers etc.
New welfare and benefit changes are coming in from this month that will see an end to a lot of small and micro businesses that are not seen as being financially viable in the eyes of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. This will also cause increased unemployment amongst mothers who have been working hard on part-time businesses from home trying to supplement their household income, and I could be one of them!
Basically the government want everyone to be in work and paying taxes regardless of whether you have children, or are caring for elderly relatives. But it is not enough any more to be running a business that you can fit around your family life - it has to earn you at least the national minimum wage each and every month. This will obviously be a problem for artists and creative types that can take weeks or months putting together a piece of work that will sell on completion. The government are basically saying they are not prepared to support you with tax credits or universal credits while you are busy creating your piece.
For someone like me who writes for a living, it will also become very difficult to prove that I run a viable business simply because I cannot predict what my income will be each month.
Say I spend two months writing a book, then a month is spent on editing and proof-reading, cover design and formatting etc. Once I publish my book, I have no idea if it will sell one copy of one thousand copies!
It is the same with my website that I am building through Wealthy Affiliate. As Kyle says, success does not happen overnight, and it can take a good year of building and refining your site before you see any tangible results. Unfortunately this will not be good enough for the government, and they will more than likely want me to give up everything I am working towards to dedicate 35 hours per week to work search duties to find a conventional, and frankly quite boring job at minimum wage so they can have my tax payments filling their coffers, despite the fact that I actually do earn enough from my self employment to pay tax, albeit a small amount.
The trouble is - where I live is quite rural, and there are no suitable jobs around, plus what little employment opportunity does turn up locally will have so much more competition for it from fellow mothers who have also been forced to abandon their work from home job to become a wage-slave sheep.
I am still waiting for all my tax-related paperwork to come through my letterbox and hit the matt, and this year it is surprisingly late arriving, I would have normally had all the paperwork through by now, so this does not bode well in my opinion.
I sincerely hope that I will be allowed to stick around WA to continue my longterm self-sustaining plans. As they say - watch this space!
Recent Comments
11
Hi
I was born in the UK but now live in Canada. These changes sound pretty hideous, although the welfare system in Canada is certainly nothing to shout about.
Glyn
Hi Michelle
Interesting blog! Rather concerning!
I'm also in the UK, so curious as to how you came about this info so I can read up more? This is the first I've heard of it, but that doesn't surprise me.
Many thanks
Brigitte
Ah, they are being really sneaky about this. Under the new universal credit rules currently being rolled out, there are lots of hidden conditionality criteria you need to meet to be able to claim. The problem is that they are also making similar changes to the tax credit system that is already in place instead of waiting until UC replaces tax credits completely.
All benefits will be covered including JSA, housing benefit, child tax credits etc. And all of it can be sanctioned if you fail to meet your targets, one of which is earning minimum wage each month from your self employment.
This will cause problems for lots of single parent families who run their own business, but cannot make minimum wage from their business each month, and who may rely on benefits to top up their income to a level where they can afford to pay the rent.
If you Google the new minimum income floor, then you will read more about it.
I am on a few Facebook pages dedicated to self employment, single parent home educators, and small business sites, and there are a lot of worried people out there.
Thanks for getting back to me Michelle. I've now found the info by googling 'new minimum income floor' as per your suggestion.
mmm... still reading but so far can see how it'll be a nightmare for so many. If 'jobs' were in abundance I'd understand it ... back to reading, thanks again
Lol Jason :) I wouldn't need an excuse to move to Ireland. I would live there in a tent! Although I don't think my son or dog would like that. That like their sofa too much :)
Unfortunately for every one normal decent person that comes across the sea, along comes 10 chavs. On the bright side they keep the police and court services in business lol
See more comments
Get the rallys going. I can see sorting out the bludgers but there is a big difference between people like you and them. So start the protests and make the parties aware that they don't have everyone's support. Get it out there. It happens in Aussie too over ridulous things.
Oh there are already protests in motion believe me. The figures are so flawed that many financial and tax companies are petitioning as we speak.