I wish I had found this website earlier and I may not be in the stupid position I'm in now

This is long so i can provide as much info as possible.

I had an IUC this week for doing self employed work whilst in receipt of HB. My partner is SE and we legally declare this.

So basically, I have been trying to set up as SE since about april, I put a website together and advertised on a social networking site. At the same time I was working as an employee so never put much effort in to get set up properly as it was something for the future- I had only just trained so was in no hurry- I didnt gain work from it as I wasnt doing any other form of advertising at this time.

In may-ish I got a new job.

In June my circumstances changed, my partner moved in and I left my employed job- not through choice but because they wanted me to work cash in hand- I have a child and wouldnt do this or i couldnt get help with childcare costs.

I now filled in a new claim for HB, myself unemployed and my partner SE.

I continued to advertise but it hadnt occurred to me for some stupid reason to put it on the form, as it hadnt generated any income I didnt class it as a source of income to be named on there.

Slowly over the last 5 months I got the odd bit of work, the odd £20 every few weeks. This was staggered and inconsistent and some months would have been £15, others £30 and this month about £50 but only recently have I began getting any number of calls for it to become a regular income- but I'm heavily pregnant now and so wont be able to do much for a while and have turned down most of it, so didnt declare it. I know looking back that i should have done but as work was few and far between for so long I never thought to and then when i did i stupidly just thought there is no point as I wont be doing any more now until next year.

So last week I got a call inviting me for IUC for not declaring SE work. I panicked when I read this, withdrew my advertising as it could be taken in the wrong way- I always made out i was busy as a prospective client would be put off if they knew I wasnt... but this didnt look good so i panicked and removed it.

I then put it out of my mind until the interview which i attended with a family member for support, mostly as i was worried i'd have a panick attack, which i occasionally do. I hadnt sought legal advice as it was only a few days away and to be honest i was ashamed to be in this position, not to mention we cant afford it and dont qualify for legal aid.

I attended the IUC and it went even worse then i expected, i fell to pieces.

They began by going over my claim form with me, it all seemed fine to me and they asked if this all seemed in order, confirmed it was me who signed it etc. Then they asked if i was working at this time to which i said no.

They then told me an allegation had been made and asked me to explain, I told them i set up ready to work SE, prepared advertising, website, leaflets etc but then fell pregnant and didnt push for business.

They then asked me if i was advertising and stupidly i said no, all i had done was on my social netwok site but it was advertising all the same and i continued to advertise in that way up until recently- but I never really got any work through it and didnt really count it as proper advertising because of that- it was to me like a platform for me to show my work and if anyone took a fancy to something they saw and i got some money that would be a bonus, being pregnant i wasnt advertising 'properly'- this was mostly family and friends. I got 2 jobs in 5 months off there. I had other enquiries but nothing came of it.

But, obviously i was stupid to say i didnt advertise as they then pulled out print outs of both my website and this social site. Until then i hadnt thought they'd mean them.

All i could say was that i wasnt getting any income from them though, but they were adamant i was 'advertising prices and services'- which i was, but it never took off! They kept saying why would i pay for a site if i wasnt getting an income from it, why would i have that, that if the work came in then i would of done it- which i said 'yes- but it doesnt get any'. I intend to work properly after the baby so wasnt planning on taking the site down, so really was planning to pay for something that doesnt get any income. I liked the site and didnt want to have to re-do it. I never realised this would be a problem.

They then moved on to products- do i buy products, i do as it is like a hobby to me- i really enjoy doing it and do a lot of practice on my own at home so i told them i do buy products for my self. I also use them on friends and family, who pay for their own products, some have provided services such in cutting my hair in return and others have swapped their own products with me. I have done the odd 'outsider' here and there for payment but this is not regular.

They again said how it wasnt realistic surely that i pay for these products and dont charge them... but i do! I pay for them as i will use them for myself, i will use them for the future and in the odd occasion i do get work i've used them then too, my sister is only young in school so i couldnt possibly charge her when she wouldnt be able to pay me. I have so much product in my cupboard unused as its not things that go off so i buy nice things i like to add to it. I dont think they got this idea, that it was my hobby as much as anything

They also bought up comments of people thanking me for my work- they were written by my sister and my partners sister and my neighbour though.

I just feel the interview went so bad, mainly as i said at the start no i wasnt working or advertising. I feel like i just came accross as a complete liar. I just never counted occasional work as 'proper' working- i have no childcare or anyone to have my child so cant do more then one off's without 'launching' properly- which i cant as i'm pregnant so it would be starting to stop 5 minutes later.

I dont know what to do now?

Do i just wait and see what happens next or do i send a letter saying just i have above, that i was flustered in the interview and struggled with the pace and back and forth questioning and a sort of 'here is my side'?

I just think that it looks worse then it is and dont know how to prove that i've not been raking in loads of cash on the side?

I also dont know if i should ring up any other authorities- jobcenter to register as a business as i have done some occasional work, IR to inform them i've done a few one off's or do i just wait to april to do a tax return- which i need to fill out anyway from the job that didnt put me on their books for the month i was there?

They said they may send for more info i.e bank statements, product orders etc. This worries me too! Only in the fact that i have ordered lots of products that i wanted- but i still have them all, but dont know if they'll ask for proof and then all i can do is show them all the stuff i've got- theres a lot but unused!

Also, because my partner is SE he has given me cash into my account in the past while we were waiting for a new tax credit request to go through to cover my bills as i got nothing for 2 months while we waited. But this is at the same time i filled in the form- i have no proof he gave it to me and i didnt earn it myself.

I just feel like its all such a mess and looks terrible. Although the sum of benefit i have received in this time amounts to £80 a month roughly, which if they decide they think i have earned loads i know i will have to pay back, that will be a struggle but not the end of the world.

I think their main concern is that they think i lied on the application form when i genuinely didnt think to put it down because i hadnt had any- i was looking for another job for the security of being employed so initially didnt plan to launch as a proper business until after a few weeks i was finding it hard to get a proper job. I just have no way to prove this, and their evidence of me advertising looks contradictory.

I dont want to admit I have deliberately tried to get more money by not putting it, when i dont feel this is the case. But if i do argue this then they may come down heavier on me anyway as obviously in hind-site i should have and even failing that, i should have declared once i didn get a first paying job from it.

Does anyone know what is likely to happen or what i should do now? I cant stop thinking about it, even though i realise it is my fault for just being stupid.

Sorry its been so long, i'm just hormonal and a serial worrier.

Please help.

Thanks

Hello and welcome to CAG. I don't have experience of this myself, but we have people who do. Please bear with us until the right person comes onto the forum and I'm sure you'll get some advice.

HB x

Thanks for your response honeybee, i know its a bit of a long read so thanks!

I have wrote a letter saying all i wanted to say in the hope that it will make it all clearer then the interview did- where i seemed to answer wrong or get muddled... im rubbish at being put on the spot.

Should i send this or wait?

I'm the sort of person that gets pulled over routinely by the police but cant help trembling and stuttering even though i know full well i am perfectly legal to drive.

Although this time i know i have done wrong, but i just want it all over and done with quickly as possible so i can move on and not be so silly again.

My hormones are probably not helping but cant stop thinking about it, stressing. I couldnt even get dressed yesterday.

anyone have any advice? Will a letter help? make it worse?

Hello, I'm not really sure about the letter. I do think its important that you get across what has actually happened, but on the other hand I can see that an investigator will think you've gone home and 'got your story together', I realise it sounds harsh, but it is the way they think.

Maybe you could offer a letter simply clarifying points you felt were not made clear in the interview, and offer additional information at the same time - for instance details of all payments received from self employment, and maybe letters from the family and friends who wrote the comments on you site and why. Even if you can't afford legal advice at the moment, you should be able to get benefit advice from a local cab, welfare rights or community law centre.

What happens next is a senior investigator will be passed your case once the investigation is concluded - they will decide what further action to take - which could be, no action, or just an overpayment, or an overpayment plus either an administrative penalty (like a fine, 30% of your overpayment), a caution or prosecution.

The decision on further action can take a long time - sometimes 3-6 months, so if you've just had the interview, it will be a while before you hear.

Finally back to the letter again - it will do harm if it in any way contradicts what you've said on tape. If it expands and provides additional information, then it may help, but I think you should at the very least take it to the cab and get them to look it over.

Hi there,

Right, don't worry about it.

The regulations (and case law) says that you only have to report changes in circumstance that would affect your benefit entitlement.

If you have spent more money than you earned, then you are running at a loss and have not made any money!

If you have only earned an average of below the amount they would disregard, then again, you have not done anything wrong.

Just because you panicked in interview and didn't get what they meant about advertising, or you had a different definition of advertising, does not show you have committed fraud.

Have you been keeping business accounts? If not, get them drawn up asap.

Have you registered as self-employed with HMRC? If not, you should do that and back-date it as far as you can (either to when you started, resumed or for the 3 months max).

And, you are pregnant and therefore, probably medically ditzy! If you are feeling under a lot of stress because of this, then tell your midwife or GP, and ask them to put in writing that pregnant women should not be stressed out!

But most of all, get advice.

Bottom line is that if you made a profit but only of a small amount then the amount of overpaid benefit will be small, and you can repay. If the overpayment is small then they normally won't bother taking it any further. But don't be tempted to sign a caution to make it go away without getting advice!!

If your partner put money in your account, then all the more important that you can prove that it came from his account and that you have your business accounts up to date. (Oh, and if you work from home, don't forget you can apportion some of you heating, broadband, phone etc. as business costs so you may be able to whittle any profit figure right down!).

Good business accounts to show what you have earned & spent and a clear audit trail for other money going in to your bank account should send them away.

To be honest, it doesn't actually sound as though you have done anything wrong, i.e. anything that would really have meant you got more benefit than you were entitled to.

(Oh, and don't forget, when you register as SE you have to pay NIC, but if you are not earning much you can claim 'small earnings relief' so you won't have to pay those).

Good luck!

grrrr.... i am not the brightest spark without pregnancy (clearly!).

If they do just next send me a letter offering a caution and to pay back any overpayment will it not just be the end of it if i sign and pay back? Thats all i want so i can get on with my life. I didnt apply for the benefit intentionally fraudulently but i did not declare any changes so i know they have got me there- i cant deny it.

I dont know that i can prove my OH gave me the cash as he no doubt would have given me some cash before putting it in his account. He is a sole trader and doesnt run a business- he works alongside someone else and doesnt have a business account or anything like that, just declares his earnings at the end of each year- he keeps a very basic diary of incoming and outgoing thats hand written and takes that with him at the end of each year to the tax office to do his return.

I was planning on taking a business course so i can understand all this as i'm not very business minded and dont have a good understanding of it all- i was hoping to learn.

I know I have spent far far more then i have earned, because i do it as a hobby for my enjoyment i buy things here and there which really add up.

Also, we get approx £80/mnth HB and CTB then also tax credits- working and child.

Are the TC likely to be dragged into all this as its not the end of the year and i was planning to declare it as 'other income' as opposed to a business because i'm not registered as one. I know your supposed to register as a business within 3 months of beginning to trade so I was just seeing how it went, I wasnt counting work in July i did as it was for practice although i got payed it was only a material cost, and not much for the following couple of months as i say, then with becoming pregnant i didnt think it worth registering as i again am not trading.

With the overpayment of HB, is the maximum amount they can hold me accountable for only what i get in benefit? I.e £20/wk?

Leemack- thanks for your advice, harsh is what i need. I figure if i prepare for what the worst likely outcome for me will be then anything above that will be more of a relief and lesson learned.

I will go to the CAB as soon as I hear more from them.

Thanks both for your time and advice.

I think the points grrrr made are excellent, especially listen to the one about getting benefit advice. Net income is what counts, and if your business income is less than expenditure, you don't have any net income - therefore no overpayment.

Even if you are sent a letter saying you have an overpayment - it doesn't mean its correct. Virtually every overpayment that comes accross my desk has been calculated incorrectly - and on many occasions when I've done the calculations, there is no overpayment.

A solicitor isn't important right now, you need a benefits caseworker to help you. As grrrr says, get your business accounts together and provide them to the investigating team. Then wait for a decision. If they say you've overpaid request a statement of reasons, and appeal the decision - then take all of the paperwork to a benefits caseworker and they should be able to work out what overpayment, if any, is due, and then write a submission for appeal explaining why you don't owe the money.

Its very important to either learn how to do accounts for your business or find someone who can do it for you. For benefit purposes, getting your accounts wrong can mean either you declare too little earnings - or more commonly too much earnings. Do some basic sums for tax credits. Anything you've earned from april doesn't count for tax credits until next april, they always calculate your award on the previous tax year. So if you didn't start your business till April 2010 there should be no effect on this years award.

But for a small business like yours, accounts can be very simple. Work out how much you've been paid for work you've done, then subtract all of your costs (ie materials, travel, advertising, phone, tax, ni etc etc there are various costs you can claim). If you have a plus number then that's your net profit over the period in question. (though someone with more business experience may well come along and tell me its not quite that simple!) If you get a minus number you've made a loss. If you make a loss you declare no income to tax credits. Local authorities will genenerally agree to attribute earnings over an appropriate period if earnings have been variable. Even if you're making a loss, you should still declare the self employment to any benefit depts.

The main point - don't accept the overpayment or further action without getting specific benefit advice.

Thanks so much, you've given me plenty to get on with this evening now!

What you need for you business accounts is a very simple spreadsheet. If you don't have MS Office or Works google & download Open Office, they have a brilliant (FREE) spreadsheet in that package.

Set up the following columns:

Date

Item / Description

Reference

Income

Expense

(you can give yourself far more detail if you like by having distinct columns for types of income & types of expense, which can be really useful for managing your business as you go along, although if you are suffering from pregnant brain fog, you could always leave this until you regain your IQ points! - if you do, just make the Income box in each row the total of all of that row's income columns & the expense ditto.).

You can't claim for NI as a business expense if you are self employed, but you can deduct NIC you are actually paying from your gross income for housing benefit purposes. Tax Credit looks at gross income.

Make sure you can justify any expense you are claiming, a good idea is to keep a single folder with all your receipts in date order, earliest at the back so you just bung them in the front as you go along. If you have small receipts staple them to a piece of paper (I have one A4 sheet for each month and I staple all my small till receipts to this for the whole month, it makes life simpler!)

If you are adding mileage claim at 40p per mile, make sure you specify where you were going & why (i.e. delivery of goods, collection of goods etc.) and if you can cross reference to another income or expense item, so much the better.

If you are adding things like electricity and heating, work out how many hours you would say you worked a week, but on the modest side (so don't include any idling about on the internet vaguely connected to work in the evenings or anything) and work out that as a proportion of your time spent at home. So, say you are at home & awake 16 hours a day and working 4 hours a day, that's 25%. Now, assume that about a quarter of your electricity (a third if you use a tumble drier normally) is fully domestic for cooking, laundry etc. So, if you have an electricity bill of £100 and you use a tumble drier, then you would be able to claim for 25% of £70, i.e. £17.50. If you remember what they told you in school and "show your working", they should permit it!

On a second spreadsheet enter all the stock items you may have purchased, and the date you purchased them, and then add columns with a date heading that relates to a sale or purchase on the other spreadsheet, and record how many of each item your stock increased / decreased by. A simple autosum will give you a running total of each row of a stock item. (That's assuming you are retailing something, which I guessed from your posts, but I may have misunderstood!).

Right, that should give you a running gross profit and stock value figure. The gross profit figure is a start, now you need to deduct any expected tax or NIC due for the HB boys (probably nothing if your income will be low).

Now, the only thing you may need to be concerned about is if you didn't tell HB / CTB about tax credits income, as this is counted as income for HB/CTB purposes, so that may lead to a bigger overpayment.

I could never recommend anyone accept a caution without expert legal advice.

I consider the only purpose for them is to tick target boxes. If you make a mistake in the future they can use it as bad character evidence and to justify criminal charges when other criteria are not met. They are supposed to only offer cautions when they have enough to prosecute, but this really doesn't tend to be the practice - as prosecution also requires the overpayment to be high enough for the prosecution to be 'in the public interest' where a caution does not. That is, of course, just my personal opinion and not in any way intended to be advice specific to your case!!

Accounts first, then you'll know what kind of overpayment you are looking at (if any).

Oh, and yes, the maximum overpayment there can have been is the benefit you have actually been paid! (My, that baby is playing havoc! ;-P)

Happy to answer any other q's about accounts, but most HB assessors haven't a notion, so as long as you have a bit of paper / calculation to back up your expense claims, you should be OK.

lol- i wish i could blame the baby but i was planning on learning all this, just hadnt got around to it!

Thank you's so much, your really making me a lot more confident about the whole situation.

I actually provide a home service to people (a non sexual one lol!) but its a specialised area that needs an awful lot of practice before you can charge properly... i'm only just reaching that stage now.

I've found lots of product receipts, they date back to about feb. this year, where i bought lots of products to begin practicing with, although most things i have only bought one of each item i really have so much i cant believe how it all adds up!

I still have most of it- probably about 85%, i do it as a hobby and on myself so only use small amounts of lots of different things and they last me a very long time as a result.

Will this go against me?

I had stopped due to pregnancy and xmas being sorted, then this and i told them that in the interview, though if i'm doing all this i may carry on plodding along with the occasional job when i can- will that go against me if i do?

One other question that springs to mind also, now i've not thought of myself as operating as a 'proper' business (i will be now!) hence why i have none of this in place, during interview i told them i do buy products to use but mostly for personal use and use on family/ friends for practice. This is the stock i have used when i have had a client. Is this not then contradicting all that i said in interview and can it then be used against me to say i have lied in the interview? - I've said I've not been running a business, just doing a few one-offs, yet here i am now providing them with business accounts?

Should I send them the accounts before i hear from them or wait until i hear from them and then send them on?

Thanks again for your help and patience with me!

Also to add... I havent informed TC about this self employed work for the same reasons above. The HB and CTB have details of my current tax credit award though. I've done my accounts this evening (working on expenses still but have a lot of paper to look through for that) and will register as self employed with HMRC tomorrow and then call TC to inform them too- though i dont think my award will change hugely because there is no profit yet.

It is perfectly reasonable to 'accidentally' fall in to self employment from a hobby - you do something for you family & friends, they tell their friends, you tell people you don't know you're too busy, they offer to pay you ... lots of businesses start that way, so don't worry!

You are coming back to them with self-employed accounts BECAUSE of their investigation, again perfectly reasonable and shows that you want to be completely clear about it. You are also pregnant and worried that your financial situation will change if you lose benefits and so figure now is a good time to formalise it all.

There is, in fact, no clear legal definition of being 'self employed' in the UK other than as a comparison to being 'employed', so the area is woolly to say least - you should be comfortable there! ;-)

As far as Housing Benefit is concerned the criminal offence is either "knowingly" or "dishonestly" no declaring income. If you have spent a lot of money on your hobby (soooo curious now as to what it is!), then when you share this with someone else you might reasonably ask them for a contribution toward it without considering it to be "income" but rather a contribution to your own expenses.

For example, a hobby aromatherapist could spend a bloody fortune on oils (I know I do!) and if a friend of a friend wanted me to make a blend for them of expensive oils, then I might pluck a charge out of my arse to try and cover some of my costs. I wouldn't count this as employment. Or, if someone asked me to make them a patchwork quilt I might ask for a contribution to fabrics I had previously bought unless I was just glad to get rid of some scraps that had been lying about for ages. Depending on your level of awareness of benefit legislation, you may think you need to declare this. A criminal offence is to KNOW that you should declare it because it will impact your benefit entitlement and not declare it or DISHONESTLY not declare it so as to gain more benefits. The burden of proof for the criminal offence is on them. However, they can pull some pretty shallow tricks in how they interpret your IUC, and if you went on your own your almost certainly said something a sneaky investigator will pluck out of context at some point.

Panic not, though, if you show your accounts that you have spent more than you earn (and add a notional deduction for what you use personally - just for you, not your friends, as you can count that as 'marketing' by giving freebies!) then you can show you had no profit to declare, and so no profit to affect your benefit. Making out you are busy & in demand is a perfectly normal marketing ploy, and as long as you don't lie to cause someone a loss or try to make a gain for yourself, or misrepresent, you have committed no crime.

You could, of course, continue on the 'but I'm not really self-employed' line if you wish, but if you don't do the accounts they will simply assume every penny in to your account was business income, and they may bump up a "knowingly" to "dishonestly"! You are not telling them that you have really been keeping records all along and that you have always known you were self-employed, you are preparing the accounts FOR THEM, and using the investigation as the kick up the back side to get your act together and try and make a real go of it, after all, you have a baby on the way. All of this is totally reasonable to normal humans. Sadly many investigators are not normal human beings, but they can't argue with numbers, hence showing them you're still broke, see?!

Don't worry about anything "going against you", the investigators are just that, information gatherers who are there to probe and probe and try to make you trip up over your words and trap yourself into saying something incriminating; but they do not make the decisions on what happens, and even (worst case scenario) they try and prosecute you, you have a simple story to tell normal people - either a magistrate or a jury.

However, to avoid all of this your best bet is to show you haven't made any money from your activities, and get everything above board now. If you are SE and on HB then you get to submit your accounts periodically, and if you haven't made any money you still get the benefit, and if you have you get 65% over the disregard of your income taken off the benefit.

Go to your local CAB and get someone to help you write a statement, make sure you make reference to the fact that you have only decided to look at your activity as self-employment SINCE the IUC (investigators do funny things with timelines when they present cases for consideration, so make it REALLY bloody clear!).

Bottom line, though is that you show you have not made any money ... oh, and the cash from your partner - see if he has a corresponding cash withdrawal or self-employed cash earning to relate it to, and get him to write a statement confirming that he gave it to you, don't just ignore it.

Another piece of case law was a guy who was prosecuted for failing to declare that he set up a limited company. He made no income from the company, so he didn't think he needed to. He was prosecuted and I think convicted, but won on appeal as although the argument was that it was up to the decision makers to decide whether or not it was relevant the court of appeal held that claimants are only liable to report changes to circumstances they know to affect their benefit entitlement. It is highly relevant to your case.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2007/2053.html

Ultimately, from what you said about your income you seem to be talking about having had a total max. income of less than £200 over 5 months. Even if you had not spent a single penny on expenses, the over payment could not be more than 65% of that, i.e. £130. In total. That's it. (Unless I've massively misunderstood how much you've been making).

For an overpayment of no more than £130 if you have no prior convictions they are so massively unlikely to do anything other than ask for it back, all you need to do is get that amount down as low as possible and make sure you're all clear about what you're diong from here on in. ... some of the people on here are talking overpayments in the 10s of thousands and still manage to avoid prosecution. With the normal caveats that this is not a substitute for professional legal blah, my personal opinion on your situation as you have presented (have I couched that enough?!) ... you'll be fine. )

Thanks I'll take a read of that case tonight.

I've done my accounts and, as i knew they would be, they are in minus figures. I've been very sparing on expenses and only put through receipts for products that i know were bought with other people in mind and not necessarily as most of it is, just because i wanted the item. I dont work from home so have not included anything there and not included petrol as i have no receips as i didnt think i needed to keep them at the time.

I have just registered as SE with HMRC and back dated to July when i first did a friend of a friend who payed only a material cost, they said as i took money its irrelevant how much it covered that was the date i had to go back to.

As i looked through, i've only seen about 3 people since July that were strangers, the rest have been friends/ friends of friends.

I was told at the interview also that even if people are just paying me material cost and not for my time it still counts as working.

Then when i rang the tax credits the advisor on the phone laughed at me when i told him the time and profit i got for being self employed- even said it didnt really count as its so little and will make no difference to my entitlement and just fill out the tax return in april then let them know. If only the council saw it like that!

Going back to your saying about it being a fuzzy area re. self employment, I totally agree and that is some of the reason i didnt think i was self employed- i googled only a month or so ago to find out when working becomes self employment as averaged only 2-3hrs a month and couldnt find any info to clarify.

My next call is to arrange a meeting with someone at CAB.

Then do i need to ring council to inform them of change of circ. now its official? Or does it kind of go without saying now they are investigating me?

I feel quite good being a proper business lol!

Whoever decided to report me may have just done me a favour after all in a funny sort of way, its turning me into a professional and making me do what i always planned to do-just sooner. Shame I'll never know who it is to thank them!

Excellent news, on all fronts. -

You feel in control; motivated to do more and have the figures needed to show you haven't made any money from it.

Result!

I would let the council know you have registered as self-employed. You don't have to until you are making a profit, but as you want the whole thing to go away you probably don't want to antagonise them any!!

Oh, and whoever told you that doing a favour for someone else when they cover your expenses but not pay for your time is 'working' is just talking bollocks and doesn't know the area!

If you deliberately didn't charge for your time as a marketing 'loss leader' then yes, it is work (and hence deductible expense), but then for housing benefit you don't have to report "work" (like you do for JSA, for example where you have to report even voluntary work) you just have to report changes in circs that affect your entitlement, and if you're not making any money it won't affect your housing benefit!!

If you have been conservative on what you have included as expenses and still made a loss, great news (for the benefits issue, not so much on the being self-employed one!). I would suggest you also gather such receipts as you can on stuff you HAVEN'T included as expenses, to show that you have spent more on similar items for your own use, just in case they think you are trying to fudge the accounts. Being able to compare the two easily, they are more likely to believe you.

Oh, and you don't need receipts for petrol money, as you can allocate 40p per mile (and even petrol prices these days aren't quite that!) for every mile, so that's there and back! If you have the postcodes of where you visited you can check the mileage via http://www.multimap.com. This is perfectly acceptable, and even if you don't want to include the travel for housing benefit, you should for your overall accounts for the tax & tax credits purposes. (You can even claim 20p per mile if you go by pedal bike!).

Sounds like you're all on top of it now, so let us know how it goes

Good for you!! )