Could be CIS 166/1994 (income support pre existence of JSA) - self-employed builder whose work had dried up held still to be gainfully employed and thus subject to the rules for calculating his weekly income by averaging his earnings over a period of a year. It's discussed in the notes to reg 30 of the IS regs in the blue volume (iii) of the Social Security legislation. You can normally only get round this by closing down the business. If you are still looking for business, advertising, canvassing etc you are still trading.
The total inability of self-employed people to claim JSA is one of the reasons the standard class II NI contributions are so much lower than those paid by employees. You get what you pay for, I suppose.
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