means test

rs8

hello everyone,

goin for my means test thusdays and just wanted advice

there asking for my bank statements for last 3 months, i have them which is no problem its just there two cheques on the statements which i earned working for a farmer down the road, amounts are small but my question is will i be asked where these came out of??

if i tell her the truth is going to be a ball of questions like " do you work often for him?, does he pay tax" etc

or could i just fob it off and say it was nixers? (could she say anything to that)??

bear in mind im under 25 and living at home

thank for replies

Lugh Ildanach

Your income from this farmer is income from self employment. You are obliged to declare it, and explain it. If there is no prospect of any work from this source again, you can say this, although they may ask for confirmation from the farmer.

They will want to know how many days work was involved. If you were signing on while in receipt of this income, and were working more than 3 days in any one week (Jobseekers Allowance weeks run from Wednesday to Tuesday), then you will lose a payment for that week.

If you were in receipt of a Supplementary Welfare Allowance payment pending your Jobseekers application, then you also should have declared this income to your Community Welfare Officer, and will be asked to repay any money that was paid to you improperly.

For self-employed income, they look at your income over the past 12 months and come up with a weekly average, and then deduct this from your social welfare payment. Only if you can show that this income was an exception and cannot be expected again, will they disregard it.

saa

Your biggest obstacle might be trying to prove you're no available to work at this farm.
and because you're living at home they might not see your need hopefully they do!

LovelyHurling

It's hardly uncommon to see new applicants who have managed to scrape a week of work here or there prior to their claim.

The reason the SWO is asking for bank statements is because they want to establish that you do not have a significant amount of money in savings.

They are unlikely to go interrogate you on each transaction on that statement if the amounts are relatively small (i.e. a week's employment)

They are even less likely to pass these details onto Revenue or be concerning themselves with compliance issues. Social Welfare Inspectors have quite a heavy workload and I wouldn't imagine many of them have the time or energy to be so methodical as to go to the above extremes in analysing the claim.