Is 'housekeeping' classed as income?

Hope2021 I hope some of the answers on here have helped you. I also really hope that your final 2 years are filled with peace and love.

Are you meaning the "support" you receive from AC that may be classed as income. If so it will depends on how much you receive and how often. As a person with adult children I am allowed to gift £3000 a year with no issues about tax. Don't knowhow this would work the other way round.. For your pension you should contact pensions agency for a forecast. I am not shocked that you stayed at home for children, often think children wouldn't have so many issues nowadays if they weren't farmed out so early in life.

The way our pension system works is that if your income is low and you have less than £28k (?) you get all the benefits whether you have contributed or not in way of pension credits. Everyone gets the same. Except if you are on pension credits you also don’t pay council tax ... we don’t have a contribution based system.

Hope2121. I too was a stay at home mum like you and never returned to work as my eldest child had ME/CFS from age 12. It was a very challenging time and hard work. Alot of my friends also were housewife's ( in the 90's) so not that unusual. I now help care for my parents in their late 80's and my grandchildren but as far as I know I do get a state pension when old enough , expecting it to be small

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Has no one else taken on board that this lady may be terminally ill?

Hope2021...... I'm confused at the message you sent to PaddyAnne, as you did say your children would look after you. Your reply seemed somewhat garbled, I couldn't make sense of it. However I think your children would become somewhat resentful in future years at having to fully support you financially. It could be a base for great friction in your family.

Forgive me for being blunt, but why do you assume your children ‘will look after you always’?

I don’t understand why at 66 (10 years younger than me) you talk as if 30 years ago was in the dark ages.

M0nica

Has no one else taken on board that this lady may be terminally ill?

That was mentioned several posts ago, and others have responded to it since .

I hadn’t realised that when I posted about contributions - I thought the OP had 2 years to state pension age. I still believe that the principle of paying in before you take out is fair, but if the OP is ill, it changes the thread altogether and I am not sure what she is asking.

OP - why have HMRC asked what you have been living on? That has nothing to do with pensions as far as I can see. Are your children giving you money to live on now? If so, I don’t think it will count as income unless you are also claiming benefits (invalidity?) in which case yes, means testing will kick in. Where is your partner in all of this? Has he stopped providing for you?

There is a lot about this situation that appears unclear, so it is difficult to know what to suggest.

When you say that children looking after parents is the norm, I wonder if you are from a cultural group that expects this to happen? If so, again that changes the parameters. I think we need more information.

NellG

I was always under the impression that women's liberation intended that women should be free to choose their path in life and not have it dictated to them. Yet here we are in 2021, with women questioning other women's life choices...

????

hope2021 You said you've been told you only have 2 years left - I'm so sorry, that must be very hard knowledge to come to terms with. There will be benefits available to you due to serious ill health: please, please contact Citizens Advice to find out where you stand. When my lovely late husband was suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis he was able to claim Attendance Allowance, for example. It's definitely worth your while making enquiries.

Katie59

Is housekeeping income ?.

If you are not married and you are being given more than your personal allowance (£10K or so) in theory it would be taxable, because your partner might be seen as paying for a service.

This is the situation I am in I get a monthly allowance part goes on housekeeping rest remains in my account.

But did you declare it for tax and NI purposes?

hope Log into Government Gateway and get a pension forecast.

If you paid NICs on your self-employed income, those years will count. Make sure they're complete years. If they're not, it might be worth paying for the gaps.

As others have said, if you have children, you should be eligible for Home Responsibilities Protection for the some of the years.

PS. I'm fairly sure that housekeeping doesn't count as income.

I was/am concerned about financial abuse in all honesty and I think if a parent makes a decision to opt out of paid employment to look after children it is always sensible to discuss with your spouse that they will top up your national insurance contribution, this is more important for young parents now who my not be claiming child benefit (former family allowance) as the NI contribution stops when your youngest is 12 if you not qualify for the benefit.

hope 2021, you just tell the HMRC you have been financially been supported by your partner. They may ask him to make a statement to verify it. We have to do this everyone year with student finance! I hope you are ok

If youvwere claiming Child Benefit in your name you may be able to get credit for those years. If you had been married you would have been able to claim on DH’s NI contributions.

I was surprised when you said 'that's how it was in those days' I have worked non stop since 1967. My children were born in the 80's and I managed to find work around their school times. 30 years ago was the 90's, all the women I knew worked. However, this was the choice you made. Everyone I think is entitled to a basic state pension whether you have paid stamps or not. i'm not sure whether being a stay at home mum/housewife constitutes 'work' in the eyes of the HMRC although all of us know it can be a lot harder.

After a lot of digging apparently there are no rules on giving cash to unmarried partners, the payments are treated a gifts

Regular payments are treated as “normal expenditure out of income” and are not taxed at all. The donor has to claim them as such in their Tax Declaration, in the same way a child or a parent could be supported

Well, as HMRC are asking about your income for the last 30 uears, get back on to them. They are they obvious people to answer your question.

I am fairly certain that housekeeping money given by a partner or spouse is not income and that you are in a pretty pickle as you have neither pay national insurance nor income tax.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, it isn¨t meant as a criticism. If you had been employed as a housekeeper you would have received a salary, had a contract and paid income tax.

Ask them what the rules are regarding dependent spouses or common-law partners.

You could also try Citizens' advice, you might just qualify for social security. It's worth asking.

I was a stay at home Mum married to a self employed person who had a mantra that paying into pension funds wasn't needed as wealth was coming. (it didn't) Divorced after 25 years I've
been scrambling the last few years to to get contributions up to date. I now run my own business so you would think I
was savvy enough to put my house in order so to speak, but
pensions were the last thing on my mind. 67 this year and
still working.

Doodledog The Op asked a simple question. If you are not married to your partned do you have to pay income tax on the housekeeping money that passed from his hands to hers - the simple answer to that is 'No.

Almost all the posts on this thread in relation to this question and offering helpful advice directly to the OP are irrelevant.

What's the real problem? Why have HMRC suddenly taken an interest in you?

Nightsky2

NellG

I was always under the impression that women's liberation intended that women should be free to choose their path in life and not have it dictated to them. Yet here we are in 2021, with women questioning other women's life choices...

????

Again, this is not about 'women's liberation', and nobody is dictating anything. Some people have pointed out that if a person (male or female) has not paid into a pension they should not expect to claim one. A partner (male or female) pays one contribution which covers him or herself, and does not 'double up' to pay for a dependent other.

That is not criticising, dictating or limiting freedom, and it does not apply only to women, liberated or not. Neither is it questioning the choices of the OP - they were hers to make.

What I am questioning now that I realise she may be ill (which I didn't earlier) is what exactly HMRC are asking about, and why? If she has not paid tax, they are unlikely to need to know anything, particularly as she is, presumably, not paying tax now.

The only way that I can thing of for 'authorities' being interested in the OP's finances are if she is now claiming benefits and also getting regular money from her children or her partner.

Most benefits are means tested, so any money she is receiving would be taken into account, whether earned or not, and if the question is about that we need to have more information before we can try to help.

If you log into Hmrc and put in your national insurance number it will tell you exactly if you have been credited with stamps and what your pension will be . I can go right back to 1981 . Try it

It should not be classed as income. Just tell HMRC you were a stay at home mum.

Doodledog: although paying in to couples' State Pension has ceased in the UK (I think 1978?) there are many couples still claiming it on historical contributions, so your point, whilst accurate for OP doesn't apply to all.
Although most benefits are means tested, not all are, especially some that relate to illness, including terminal illness.
M0nica - I do think it mostly helpful to take OP's question a little further - as those have who pointed out that she may be entitled to a State Pension (it wasn't clear why she was not intending to claim) and how to investigate that.
However, I do agree that those who have turned this into a discussion about choices made by families have overstepped the mark here. It is a reasonable discussion for another thread, but I am afraid that it may have driven OP away. I hope she has sufficient answers to help her - I think she does.

What a lot of judgemental people on here. Women who went out to work used to be heartless bitches because they didn't play the role of full-time wife and mother. Now women who are full-time wives and mothers are lazy cows because they don't have paid jobs.

There is always one acceptable role for women and anyone who doesn't fit that role must be criticised mercilessly. So much for sisterhood.