Receiving donations whilst on benefits - is this allowed?

[adam787]

Hello, I was made redundant(no pay i don't have like thousands of pounds, not even close it was a apprenticeship type vacancy so no redundancy pay) recently and im starting to do a show which allows people to donate (optional) which does not go toward any real life spending, purely towards the stream.

 

however i'm worried if this is benefit Freud in any way?

 

can someone explain this to me? thank you.

Edited February 20, 2016 by adam787

[Nystagmite]

This may be classed as work. Are DWP aware of what you're doing?

[BankFodder]

I expect that you have a duty to explain any income to them and then to act on their advice.

[adam787]

I've not started it, yet but im getting requests to allow donations, the donations are very minimal if i do like £5 - £20 and its way under 16 hours. but won't it be freud if i use it for my own persona living? if it goes directly towards the stream etc? I'm trying to find more information regarding it. (as it's donations)

[Nystagmite]

Usually for any paid work, you can keep the first £5-20 a week depending on your situation. But yes, you have to explain any income to them.

[adam787]

this is not paid work though, this is like a "gift" surely i don't have to declare a gift to DWP? right?

 

just something fun, like gaming etc..

[Mr.P]

My take on this: You are doing presentations (work in any other language) for which you are receiving a renumeration. Regardless of what you call this money, the DWP will see it as an income and is therefor declarable (as is the hours spent running the presentation).

 

If the DWP regard the money as income, then HMRC will want their cut in the way of income tax and national insurance contributions.

[antone]

This is a tricky one. First off, yes, you would need to declare this to the Jobcentre - you must cover yourself against any possible allegation of fraud in the future, and no-one can accuse you of fraud if you told them about the money.

 

So how would the Jobcentre/DWP regard this money? Well, I think there are two possibilities.

 

They could be seen as "Voluntary Payments". These are fully disregarded (that is, you can keep them and they do not affect your benefit) but there is a question in my mind about whether this would apply. The reason for that question is that Voluntary Payments are normally given with no expectation of anything in return - say, for example, if a family member gives you £20 per week to help you pay for your car expenses or something like that. But in this case, the people making donations would be getting something in return - they'd be receiving your stream. And while I realise that you would still provide the stream for free to people who aren't able or willing to donate, I have a feeling that the DWP might still think that it doesn't exactly count as a Voluntary Payment by the strict reading of the rules.

 

So in the other case, it could be seen as income from self employment. In this case you would be allowed to offset the costs you incur in providing the stream against any donations you receive. You should, therefore, keep strict records of any such costs (ISP costs or whatever) as well as all of the donations you receive. There is also a small disregard applied to income from employment - £5 per week if you're single, £10 if you're part of a couple, £20 if you're disabled. So once you've deducted your costs from your income, you can keep £5 (or £10, or £20) of whatever is left, then the rest would be deducted from your benefits.

 

When you inform the DWP, the matter will probably be referred to a Decision Maker who will look at the case on its individual merits and determine how the money should be treated for benefit purposes.

[adam787]

I won't be earning enough to pay anything towards TAX or NI I will have to speak to my adviser when i'm next in, thank you.

[tommy456]

This is of some interest , as i know someone who was quite well known for their you tube video channel , they i think asked for donations to help fund better equipment such as camera's and associated things like software to edit videos and microphones and they admitted that they claimed sickness related benefits as they had crones disease

So if they were able to prove they had spent money received via donations or as goodwill on things to further their you tube video content which is unpaid and accessed FOC to the public globally, how could they deem this to be income?