I am about to change my claim from Incapacity Bennefit to jobseekers aloowance because my injury has healed and I am now fit for work.

In the past I have made a little bit of cash buying and selling things on ebay.

When I make my new claim will they ask to see bank statmements?

If they do, will they be concerned about the money I've had coming in from Ebay? I know I can legaly earn £20 per week and still get my bennefit but I have sometimes had more coming in (although very little is actualy profit becasue I've had to lay out to buy the items in the first place).

Thanks for your help.

It will depend on which type of Jobseekers Allowance you claim, contribution based JSA is a personal allowance for you and it is based on the contributions you paid in the last three years (if you have claimed incapacity for this period it may link)

Income based JSA is means tested, this means you and your partner (if you have one) are part of the assessment. If you have any income you must declare it, however they will only want to see your bank statements if you declare savings/capital in excess of £5500.00 as the amount of benefit you are entitled to is affected from £6000.00 onwards.

If you have an income each week, they do not disregard any of it, it will be taken into consideration pound for pound unless it is part time earnings or voluntary maintenance (they would disregard a small portion of this income based on your personal circumstances). You can continue to sign on even if your earnings exceed JSA but you would not rec any money.

Hope that helps

Also remember that whilst on Incapacity benefit you should have declared any work that you were doing as, except in very limited circumstances, you are not allowed to work at all whilst on Incapacity.

Mentioning Ebay earnings now might have very serious repercussions if you didn't tell them before. I'm not sure how you can get around this, because obviously you do have to tell the benefits people of any earnings, but hopefully someone else will have some ideas.

Oh I see. I didn't consider that a bit of ebay trading would be considered as work, and I thought I was allowed to earn £20 per week (profit) before they deducted anything. If you average out all my money I have never earned more than £20 per week profit.

I only ever spent about 2-3 hours per week on ebay so I guess that would be considered part time.

I can confirm that if you had received Income Support you would be allowed to earn £20 per week but I don't know about Incapacity Benefit.

What came as a shock to me when a friend claiming jsa wanted to work just a few hours a week (less than 10) was told he could only earn £5.00 before it had an affect on his claim. I didn't believe it and he checked with our neighbourhood office who confirmed this is so.

They may well want to see new statements ( I don't know for certain) but if there has been no ebay activity this might be advantageous to you.

Ok I understand. I have a partner and am making a joint claim for both of us. Does that push the amount I'm allowed to earn up (does it double to £40)? If so I might do a bit more on ebay, I'm really strugling to survive on the benefit money and at the moment havn't seen any jobs I'm likely to get.

Is what money you got from ebay classed as "earnings" if you were selling off a few of your personal possessions? ;)

I sold a a Nintendo DS just before xmas last year (when they were all sold out in the shops). The winning bidder paid £150 for it (£70 profit on what I had paid). I needed 2 for my kids for christmas and somehow ended up with 3. I had paid for it so it was mine to sell, so could the profit really be classed as earnings?

We are on benefits and I can't remember being asked for bank statements to claim any benefit other than council tax and housing benefit. I assume you are already in receipt of these benefits, so you bank statements probably wont be an issue.

Regarding what you are allowed to earn when on JSA, I would ring and ask them. We are a family with 2 kids and I applied for a job recently and was told any wages over £20 would be deducted from our benefit. There are different amounts for different circumstances.

The only thing that can be said for sure is that it is a minefield. No wonder people keep quiet.

Exactly,

As I said earlier it does depend on a lot of things, firstly which benefit you claim and also you have to consider the time you are spending trading on ebay. To claim Jobseekers Allowance (both of them) you have to be available, capable and actively seeking work for at least 40hrs per week. If for argument sake are trading for 20hrs per week this will have an affect on your available hours.

You could also keep quiet about your trading and just do it on an evening therefore you do not affect your availability, however on the capital/savings (income based JSA) side of things you have to tread very carefully, you may not feel your trading constitutes a lot of money but if the profit part of the amount exceeds £5, you are in fact committing fraud if you do not declare it.

Having said that, Huggys boss I think if it is something you do vary rarely or once in a blue moon I wouldnt worry too much about it.

Incapacity benefit isn't directly means tested, so you are allowed private sources of income. The only restriction is on work. I'm not sure whether selling on ebay counts as work, but it presumably depends on the circumstances: trading full time would; selling a few possessions wouldn't.

If your selling does count as work, it is permitted work if either:

1) You made no more than £20 a week, or

2) You made no more than £88.50 a week and worked for less than 16 hours a week.

So I reckon you'll be ok unless you were trading full time.

Thanks very much , that makes sense.

Hi Bigcarpman

Be careful, if they find out they will pull all your bank accounts, building society accounts etc. Then you will have to explain where all the payments came from and why you never informed them of your trading.

I'm going to be totaly up front with them about it from now on, but thanks for the warning anyway.

Hi Bigcarpman

If your going to be upfront with them from now on.

Open a new bank account and Paypal account, close down any banks and Ebay sites that you have previously been selling on, and start afreash.

I know this may seem a lot to do, but this is just a helpful warning.

If you don't they can go back to every transaction you have made on ebay.

This is just a bit of helpful advice, you don't need to take it.

Gaz