Spouse VISA via self employed Success! - Financial Requirement section
Oct 6th 2018, 11:56 am
#76
Just Joined
Joined: Oct 2018
Posts: 1
Re: Spouse VISA via self employed Success! - Financial Requirement section
Thank you so much for this post! It has been an extremely helpful reference in my application process.
I was wondering if anyone could help me. The nature of my husband's self employment is a bit difficult to describe and I am having trouble figuring out what will count as 'unaudited statements' for him.
My husband is a self-employed carpenter. For the past two years he has worked under a contracting company which uses an intermediary payroll company (hudsons contract) to pay the self-employed workers on their jobs. At the end of each week, hudsons contract pays directly into my husbands bank account and takes off the necessary amount of tax on each payment so that my husband does not have to pay tax at the end of the year when he files his return. At the end of the month, Hudsons Contract sends my husband a summary of the tax month that just passed. It summarizes the 'gross pay, mat's, cis%, tax and net pay' for each weekly payment paid to my husband for that month.
I know this makes it sound like my husband is a salaried employee, but he isn't. Hudson Contract, on their website, refers to themselves as
'Hudson Contract acts as the ‘engager’ sitting within contracting chains between construction firms and self-employed freelance construction operatives. HMRC would call us an Employment Intermediary or Labour Provider.
Taking on this role allows us, for a small fee, to take on the employment status risks which would otherwise fall upon those construction firms.
Because the most visible part of what we do is handle the payments to the operatives, and to deal with tax deductions under CIS, many people refer to us as a CIS Payroll Firm.'
My questions are the following:
1. Can anyone think of a better, clearer way to describe the nature of my husband's self employment? I want to be able to include this in our application.
2. What should we submit as 'unaudited accounts'? Do these Hudson Contract summaries count as the unaudited accounts that they are asking for? These summaries, his tax return, SA302 and bank statements are all he has in terms of financial statements. Will these count?
Thank you!! Hopefully someone will be able to hope *fingers crossed*
Thank you!
I was wondering if anyone could help me. The nature of my husband's self employment is a bit difficult to describe and I am having trouble figuring out what will count as 'unaudited statements' for him.
My husband is a self-employed carpenter. For the past two years he has worked under a contracting company which uses an intermediary payroll company (hudsons contract) to pay the self-employed workers on their jobs. At the end of each week, hudsons contract pays directly into my husbands bank account and takes off the necessary amount of tax on each payment so that my husband does not have to pay tax at the end of the year when he files his return. At the end of the month, Hudsons Contract sends my husband a summary of the tax month that just passed. It summarizes the 'gross pay, mat's, cis%, tax and net pay' for each weekly payment paid to my husband for that month.
I know this makes it sound like my husband is a salaried employee, but he isn't. Hudson Contract, on their website, refers to themselves as
'Hudson Contract acts as the ‘engager’ sitting within contracting chains between construction firms and self-employed freelance construction operatives. HMRC would call us an Employment Intermediary or Labour Provider.
Taking on this role allows us, for a small fee, to take on the employment status risks which would otherwise fall upon those construction firms.
Because the most visible part of what we do is handle the payments to the operatives, and to deal with tax deductions under CIS, many people refer to us as a CIS Payroll Firm.'
My questions are the following:
1. Can anyone think of a better, clearer way to describe the nature of my husband's self employment? I want to be able to include this in our application.
2. What should we submit as 'unaudited accounts'? Do these Hudson Contract summaries count as the unaudited accounts that they are asking for? These summaries, his tax return, SA302 and bank statements are all he has in terms of financial statements. Will these count?
Thank you!! Hopefully someone will be able to hope *fingers crossed*
Thank you!
Dec 6th 2018, 3:53 pm
#77
Just Joined
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 1
Re: Spouse VISA via self employed Success! - Financial Requirement section
Just wanted to post some advise for others having difficulty with the financial requirement bit of the spouse Visa if your self employed. Even though we didn't use a lawyer we still had a successful application.
My partner got her VISA using the UKBA premium service, we got a decision within 2.5hours! The premium service is £1001 total so that's £400 extra on top of the normal £601 for the postal application. In my opinion it's well worth £400 to avoid 2 months of uncertainty, nail biting and hassle. Plus if you are applying close to April you might have to reapply for the next financial year if your application gets sent back.
I'm self employed so I had to provide tons of extra paperwork but it worked out ok in the end. Here's how I did it:
For the Financial Requirement section:
- Brief letter stating the nature of you self-employment (so I created a formal letter which stated my job title, stated that my income exceeds the minimum requirement, stated when I registered as self employed with HMRC and also where to find the income on the bank statements I provided)
- Evidence of the amount of tax payable, paid and unpaid for the last full financial year (I provided 3 documents here. Firstly a print out copy of the Annual self-assessment tax return to HMRC for the last financial year. Secondly I provided a Statement of Account SA302. Thirdly I got a print out of my Tax payment calculation from HMRC. You can get all of these posted to you if you call HMRC )
- Proof of registration with HMRC as self-employed (I couldn't find my original copy of this so I phoned HMRC and they sent me out a confirmation of self-employment)
- Unique tax reference number UTR (There is no document for this but the UTR number appears on the HMRC letters so that is fine)
- Personal bank statements for the same 12-month period as the tax return showing that the income from self-employment has been paid into an account in the name of the person or in the name of the person and their partner jointly – need full bank statements for each month of tax year period (I have paperless banking so I had to call my bank and request paper copies of my statement between the start and end of the last financial year)
- Evidence of ongoing self-employment through evidence of payment of Class 2 National Insurance contributions (I proved 2 documents here. Firstly call HMRC and ask for a schedule of payments for Class 2 National Insurance contributions. Secondly I went to my bank and got a authorised print out (with official bank stamp) of the class 2 National insurance payments made to HMRC from the end of the last financial year to the current date.
- Unaudited accounts for the last full financial year and an accountant’s certificate of confirmation, from an accountant who is a member of a UK Recognised Supervisory Body (as defined in the Companies Act 2006) (This was the final document I provided and tricky to get hold of if you do your own accounts. First of all this is just one letter, you can't get a certificate of confirmation from an accountant basically all you need do is insure that the accountant puts their credentials (ICAEW) and membership number at the bottom of the letter next to where they sign. I paid an accountant £150 for this letter but you must insure they are a fully qualified accountant member of the ICAEW (or other allowed body) otherwise the letter is worthless!! There are lots of qualified accountants in the UK that will be able to do this for you. Basically you need to provide them with your income statement calculations which you used to fill out your tax return from that they can draft you a letter containing these calculations and saying they confirm the calculations based on the information you provided them with)
So it took time to get all of the documents but we had a successful application. I recommend checking all pieces of information with a fine tooth-comb to insure no screw-ups.
Hope this helps.
My partner got her VISA using the UKBA premium service, we got a decision within 2.5hours! The premium service is £1001 total so that's £400 extra on top of the normal £601 for the postal application. In my opinion it's well worth £400 to avoid 2 months of uncertainty, nail biting and hassle. Plus if you are applying close to April you might have to reapply for the next financial year if your application gets sent back.
I'm self employed so I had to provide tons of extra paperwork but it worked out ok in the end. Here's how I did it:
For the Financial Requirement section:
- Brief letter stating the nature of you self-employment (so I created a formal letter which stated my job title, stated that my income exceeds the minimum requirement, stated when I registered as self employed with HMRC and also where to find the income on the bank statements I provided)
- Evidence of the amount of tax payable, paid and unpaid for the last full financial year (I provided 3 documents here. Firstly a print out copy of the Annual self-assessment tax return to HMRC for the last financial year. Secondly I provided a Statement of Account SA302. Thirdly I got a print out of my Tax payment calculation from HMRC. You can get all of these posted to you if you call HMRC )
- Proof of registration with HMRC as self-employed (I couldn't find my original copy of this so I phoned HMRC and they sent me out a confirmation of self-employment)
- Unique tax reference number UTR (There is no document for this but the UTR number appears on the HMRC letters so that is fine)
- Personal bank statements for the same 12-month period as the tax return showing that the income from self-employment has been paid into an account in the name of the person or in the name of the person and their partner jointly – need full bank statements for each month of tax year period (I have paperless banking so I had to call my bank and request paper copies of my statement between the start and end of the last financial year)
- Evidence of ongoing self-employment through evidence of payment of Class 2 National Insurance contributions (I proved 2 documents here. Firstly call HMRC and ask for a schedule of payments for Class 2 National Insurance contributions. Secondly I went to my bank and got a authorised print out (with official bank stamp) of the class 2 National insurance payments made to HMRC from the end of the last financial year to the current date.
- Unaudited accounts for the last full financial year and an accountant’s certificate of confirmation, from an accountant who is a member of a UK Recognised Supervisory Body (as defined in the Companies Act 2006) (This was the final document I provided and tricky to get hold of if you do your own accounts. First of all this is just one letter, you can't get a certificate of confirmation from an accountant basically all you need do is insure that the accountant puts their credentials (ICAEW) and membership number at the bottom of the letter next to where they sign. I paid an accountant £150 for this letter but you must insure they are a fully qualified accountant member of the ICAEW (or other allowed body) otherwise the letter is worthless!! There are lots of qualified accountants in the UK that will be able to do this for you. Basically you need to provide them with your income statement calculations which you used to fill out your tax return from that they can draft you a letter containing these calculations and saying they confirm the calculations based on the information you provided them with)
So it took time to get all of the documents but we had a successful application. I recommend checking all pieces of information with a fine tooth-comb to insure no screw-ups.
Hope this helps.
How did you find the accountant? I am struggling to find one who would provide it.
Cheers
Fady
Feb 12th 2019, 7:15 pm
#78
Just Joined
Joined: Feb 2019
Posts: 4
Re: Spouse VISA via self employed Success! - Financial Requirement section
Hello,
I am a Mexican (applicant) currently living in Mexico and my husband (sponsor) is an EEA citizen with UK Permanent Residency Status, living in the UK.
My question is regarding the financial requirement.
My husband is self-employed (sole trader) in the UK since January 2018 and exceeds the financial requirement. He was in salaried employment for 3 years before changing to self-employment, and even then met the financial requirement.
This means that:
A) for the last full financial year (April 2017-April 2018) he was employed for 9 months and worked 3 months as self-employed,
B) his current financial year which started April 2018 will end in April 2019 (in two months)
That said, we would like to apply ASAP for the spouse visa. However, my question is: DO WE NEED TO WAIT UNTIL AFTER APRIL 6 2019 TO MAKE THE APPLICATION? or rather, CAN WE APPLY IN FEBRUARY 2019 GIVEN THAT HE HAS BEEN WORKING AS SELF-EMPLOYED FOR THE PAST 13 MONTHS?
Hope somebody will know
I am a Mexican (applicant) currently living in Mexico and my husband (sponsor) is an EEA citizen with UK Permanent Residency Status, living in the UK.
My question is regarding the financial requirement.
My husband is self-employed (sole trader) in the UK since January 2018 and exceeds the financial requirement. He was in salaried employment for 3 years before changing to self-employment, and even then met the financial requirement.
This means that:
A) for the last full financial year (April 2017-April 2018) he was employed for 9 months and worked 3 months as self-employed,
B) his current financial year which started April 2018 will end in April 2019 (in two months)
That said, we would like to apply ASAP for the spouse visa. However, my question is: DO WE NEED TO WAIT UNTIL AFTER APRIL 6 2019 TO MAKE THE APPLICATION? or rather, CAN WE APPLY IN FEBRUARY 2019 GIVEN THAT HE HAS BEEN WORKING AS SELF-EMPLOYED FOR THE PAST 13 MONTHS?
Hope somebody will know
Jun 5th 2019, 9:35 pm
#79
Just Joined
Joined: Jun 2019
Posts: 1
Re: Spouse VISA via self employed Success! - Financial Requirement section
Just wanted to post some advise for others having difficulty with the financial requirement bit of the spouse Visa if your self employed. Even though we didn't use a lawyer we still had a successful application.
My partner got her VISA using the UKBA premium service, we got a decision within 2.5hours! The premium service is £1001 total so that's £400 extra on top of the normal £601 for the postal application. In my opinion it's well worth £400 to avoid 2 months of uncertainty, nail biting and hassle. Plus if you are applying close to April you might have to reapply for the next financial year if your application gets sent back.
I'm self employed so I had to provide tons of extra paperwork but it worked out ok in the end. Here's how I did it:
For the Financial Requirement section:
- Brief letter stating the nature of you self-employment (so I created a formal letter which stated my job title, stated that my income exceeds the minimum requirement, stated when I registered as self employed with HMRC and also where to find the income on the bank statements I provided)
- Evidence of the amount of tax payable, paid and unpaid for the last full financial year (I provided 3 documents here. Firstly a print out copy of the Annual self-assessment tax return to HMRC for the last financial year. Secondly I provided a Statement of Account SA302. Thirdly I got a print out of my Tax payment calculation from HMRC. You can get all of these posted to you if you call HMRC )
- Proof of registration with HMRC as self-employed (I couldn't find my original copy of this so I phoned HMRC and they sent me out a confirmation of self-employment)
- Unique tax reference number UTR (There is no document for this but the UTR number appears on the HMRC letters so that is fine)
- Personal bank statements for the same 12-month period as the tax return showing that the income from self-employment has been paid into an account in the name of the person or in the name of the person and their partner jointly – need full bank statements for each month of tax year period (I have paperless banking so I had to call my bank and request paper copies of my statement between the start and end of the last financial year)
- Evidence of ongoing self-employment through evidence of payment of Class 2 National Insurance contributions (I proved 2 documents here. Firstly call HMRC and ask for a schedule of payments for Class 2 National Insurance contributions. Secondly I went to my bank and got a authorised print out (with official bank stamp) of the class 2 National insurance payments made to HMRC from the end of the last financial year to the current date.
- Unaudited accounts for the last full financial year and an accountant’s certificate of confirmation, from an accountant who is a member of a UK Recognised Supervisory Body (as defined in the Companies Act 2006) (This was the final document I provided and tricky to get hold of if you do your own accounts. First of all this is just one letter, you can't get a certificate of confirmation from an accountant basically all you need do is insure that the accountant puts their credentials (ICAEW) and membership number at the bottom of the letter next to where they sign. I paid an accountant £150 for this letter but you must insure they are a fully qualified accountant member of the ICAEW (or other allowed body) otherwise the letter is worthless!! There are lots of qualified accountants in the UK that will be able to do this for you. Basically you need to provide them with your income statement calculations which you used to fill out your tax return from that they can draft you a letter containing these calculations and saying they confirm the calculations based on the information you provided them with)
So it took time to get all of the documents but we had a successful application. I recommend checking all pieces of information with a fine tooth-comb to insure no screw-ups.
Hope this helps.
My partner got her VISA using the UKBA premium service, we got a decision within 2.5hours! The premium service is £1001 total so that's £400 extra on top of the normal £601 for the postal application. In my opinion it's well worth £400 to avoid 2 months of uncertainty, nail biting and hassle. Plus if you are applying close to April you might have to reapply for the next financial year if your application gets sent back.
I'm self employed so I had to provide tons of extra paperwork but it worked out ok in the end. Here's how I did it:
For the Financial Requirement section:
- Brief letter stating the nature of you self-employment (so I created a formal letter which stated my job title, stated that my income exceeds the minimum requirement, stated when I registered as self employed with HMRC and also where to find the income on the bank statements I provided)
- Evidence of the amount of tax payable, paid and unpaid for the last full financial year (I provided 3 documents here. Firstly a print out copy of the Annual self-assessment tax return to HMRC for the last financial year. Secondly I provided a Statement of Account SA302. Thirdly I got a print out of my Tax payment calculation from HMRC. You can get all of these posted to you if you call HMRC )
- Proof of registration with HMRC as self-employed (I couldn't find my original copy of this so I phoned HMRC and they sent me out a confirmation of self-employment)
- Unique tax reference number UTR (There is no document for this but the UTR number appears on the HMRC letters so that is fine)
- Personal bank statements for the same 12-month period as the tax return showing that the income from self-employment has been paid into an account in the name of the person or in the name of the person and their partner jointly – need full bank statements for each month of tax year period (I have paperless banking so I had to call my bank and request paper copies of my statement between the start and end of the last financial year)
- Evidence of ongoing self-employment through evidence of payment of Class 2 National Insurance contributions (I proved 2 documents here. Firstly call HMRC and ask for a schedule of payments for Class 2 National Insurance contributions. Secondly I went to my bank and got a authorised print out (with official bank stamp) of the class 2 National insurance payments made to HMRC from the end of the last financial year to the current date.
- Unaudited accounts for the last full financial year and an accountant’s certificate of confirmation, from an accountant who is a member of a UK Recognised Supervisory Body (as defined in the Companies Act 2006) (This was the final document I provided and tricky to get hold of if you do your own accounts. First of all this is just one letter, you can't get a certificate of confirmation from an accountant basically all you need do is insure that the accountant puts their credentials (ICAEW) and membership number at the bottom of the letter next to where they sign. I paid an accountant £150 for this letter but you must insure they are a fully qualified accountant member of the ICAEW (or other allowed body) otherwise the letter is worthless!! There are lots of qualified accountants in the UK that will be able to do this for you. Basically you need to provide them with your income statement calculations which you used to fill out your tax return from that they can draft you a letter containing these calculations and saying they confirm the calculations based on the information you provided them with)
So it took time to get all of the documents but we had a successful application. I recommend checking all pieces of information with a fine tooth-comb to insure no screw-ups.
Hope this helps.
Jun 6th 2019, 5:52 am
#80
SUPER MODERATOR
Joined: Oct 2007
Location: In a darkened room somewhere.............
Posts: 34,029
Re: Spouse VISA via self employed Success! - Financial Requirement section
Nov 6th 2019, 9:12 am
#81
Just Joined
Joined: Nov 2019
Posts: 1
Re: Spouse VISA via self employed Success! - Financial Requirement section
Hi UKguy0061 ,
Thanks so much for all the info was super helpful, I'm extending my spouse visa and struggling with the unaudited accounts!! They didn't ask for that when we first applied so I had no idea about this new document. I can't find an accountant that would do this for my husband unless he was a previous client, would it be possible for you to give me the info of someone who could help me with that certificate?
Many thanks in advance.
Thanks so much for all the info was super helpful, I'm extending my spouse visa and struggling with the unaudited accounts!! They didn't ask for that when we first applied so I had no idea about this new document. I can't find an accountant that would do this for my husband unless he was a previous client, would it be possible for you to give me the info of someone who could help me with that certificate?
Many thanks in advance.
Nov 6th 2019, 9:49 am
#82
SUPER MODERATOR
Joined: Oct 2007
Location: In a darkened room somewhere.............
Posts: 34,029
Re: Spouse VISA via self employed Success! - Financial Requirement section
Hi UKguy0061 ,
Thanks so much for all the info was super helpful, I'm extending my spouse visa and struggling with the unaudited accounts!! They didn't ask for that when we first applied so I had no idea about this new document. I can't find an accountant that would do this for my husband unless he was a previous client, would it be possible for you to give me the info of someone who could help me with that certificate?
Many thanks in advance.
Thanks so much for all the info was super helpful, I'm extending my spouse visa and struggling with the unaudited accounts!! They didn't ask for that when we first applied so I had no idea about this new document. I can't find an accountant that would do this for my husband unless he was a previous client, would it be possible for you to give me the info of someone who could help me with that certificate?
Many thanks in advance.
Please start a new thread with your question and hopefully others can help.
Good luck.
