Revenue says that someone on Jobseekers can't do voluntary work? unpaid work?

Brendan Burgess said:
HI gipimann

That is very helpful, but in practice if an unemployed person tidies up his local area , will the SW Inspector be interested?

If an unemployed freind of mine helps me to do the garden, is he really supposed to report that he was not available for work for that afternoon?

Brendan
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The SW inspector may be interested in the "local area clean-up" scenario if it suggests that the volunteers are facilitating job replacement by the authority responsible for cleaning up the area (e.g. the council), especially if the volunteers are organised.

Although not my area of expertise, my opinion isthat SW have no interest in a person who's helping you to do the garden who gets a couple of pints as thanks, and they would not be expected to sign off. It's no different than the person spending the afternoon doing his own garden.

If, however, the person started helping others in the estate to do their gardens, and then starts doing the gardens for them and gets a few quid for his efforts, where does this stop being a "neighbourly act" and start being "black economy work"? Therein lies the difficulty.

As oldnick said, I'm sure that the "I was only helping out" excuse has been used by some who are deliberately working for cash-in-hand and signing on, so Revenue and SW have to investigate them very seriously. I'm not suggesting for one minute that this is the situation in Demented's case, I'm just making a general point.
 
I am surprised that you answered any questions if a revenue inspector just turned up out of the blue and starting asking questions. I dont believe you were obliged to answer anything.

I know you were happy to answer questions as you believed yourself to be fully compliant but most revenue inspectors dont just turn up out of the blue.They carry out inspections as a result of a tip off or because something you have done has caused you to appear on an inspection list. (could simply be as a previous poster said that you are building a house and they looked at planning permissions etc..)

How did they know you would be there that day? Surely you are entitled to a minimum notice period of an investigation taking place?

I would expect SW inspections to be unexpected but a revenue inspection is different. I wonder are they asking on some sort of tip off?
 
He just turned up about ten minutes after they went into the site. They hadn't even actually started. He parked outside and walked in and my partner just answered what he asked. He did say he was from revenue before he asked anything but my partner just answered what he asked and when he asked and my brother answered then when he wanted a word with him.

I could understand if he was on some randoms persons house because then you would know there is something wrong. But i also understand that he could be doing it for me and me paying him but we aren't.

Anyway. He went in. They weren't very helpful and didn't really care. Said it was nothing to do with them (??) but it's not allowed. That you cannot work for nothing for anyone including a family member and that if he wants to do it then he could register as self employed and come off the social welfare even though we'd be giving him nothing. So i spoke to him when he came out and said what about if we gave him money to do the joists so they builder can come back as was planned could he sign off for the hours he would be with us. He phoned them. No he cannot sign off for days like that either.

I am lost. I don't understand it. So he can't do it for free and we cannot pay him and he sign off for the few days either.

Citizens advice said the information the social welfare gave is wrong. Social welfare are saying you can't but basically they are not interested. And revenue say he can't.

As for revenue calling to a site. I would presume anyone like that would be entitled to enter and ask what they want to make sure everything is legit? Either way we didn't think we had anything to hide so when he came in my partner was happy to talk to him and answer his questions and so was my brother when he then talked to him. Why would they not be allowed ask anything?

There is nothing anyone could report us to revenue for as far as i am aware.
 
FioBi said:
I am surprised that you answered any questions if a revenue inspector just turned up out of the blue and starting asking questions. I dont believe you were obliged to answer anything.

I know you were happy to answer questions as you believed yourself to be fully compliant but most revenue inspectors dont just turn up out of the blue.They carry out inspections as a result of a tip off or because something you have done has caused you to appear on an inspection list. (could simply be as a previous poster said that you are building a house and they looked at planning permissions etc..)

How did they know you would be there that day? Surely you are entitled to a minimum notice period of an investigation taking place?

I would expect SW inspections to be unexpected but a revenue inspection is different. I wonder are they asking on some sort of tip off?
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Stop scaremongering.

Revenue routinely visit sites like this. They are fully entitled to enter, to make enquiries, and to require all reasonable assistance. See Section 904 TCA 1997.

A few relevant excerpts:
"An authorised officer may at all reasonable times enter a premises on suspicion that relevant operations (construction, forestry or meat processing) are or have been carried on there or that there are records located there."
"The authorised officer may require records to be supplied by appropriate persons."
"An authorised officer can require all reasonable assistance in going about his/her work."
"A penalty of €4,000 applies for non-compliance with the provisions of this section."
 
Carperner was fully compliant and helper was never caught. :)
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I would question how the carpenter was fully compliant when the employee who he had had on his books, paying PAYE, PRSI and CIF pension ect had such an issue with either Revenue or Social Welfare.

Clearly the employer did not inform the inspector that his properly registered employee who had nothing to hide just legged it up the fields.
 
I understand what you are saying. My post was what happened but was also a bit young in cheek.

Obviously he wasn't fully compliant a evidenced by the disappearance of the helper, but SW man went away happy.

This was back in the early 90's when compliance was optional :)
 
I do not know what to do about this at all. I have been thinking about it all night. There does not seem to be a way to get him to do it for free like he offered and there does not seem to be a way i could pay him for a few days work and him not receive social welfare those days now either.
 
Also thank you for the clarification mandelbrot. I had told my partner that apparently he need not have answered anything and he said if anyone else comes in when we restart he would refuse so it's good to know to tell him to just answers any official that ever enters. Who else are self builds likely to get a visit from?
He said the guy was a nice enough fella, got a bit ratty when my brother said he was on social welfare all right but then went on to tell them it was the tidiest site he had been on in a long time and complimented the block layers work saying it was the best he had seen on any site and he had been on many and off he went.

Bit of a pain now though not being able to get the block layer back Monday to finish his part and be done with that aspect of it.
 
Demented - you chose the right name for yourself !

I think you are getting too worked up about this. I know that some people who are not used to officialdom can easily get upset when faced with someone from any govnt dept quoting rules and saying its against regulations.

It seems nobody on this thread knows the solution to this insanity. I get the opinion that none of the posters, including me, have ever come across a situation where a couple's relatives are helping out for nothing -and getting into trouble for doing so.

I may be wrong but the concept of voluntary work as per the quoted extracts is not meant to include one's brother,partner ,son or anyone else in the family giving free time to help one with work on one's property.
However, officials cannot think outside what is written. So they quote the rules without regard to how in some cases (like yours) they make no sense.
It's usually up to their seniors (or the courts) to make sense of the rules.

However, I udnerstand that you don't want to have the bother of fighting this and you may decide to stop using their help. That would be such pity. Allowing some official to stop a brother or partner helping you is obscenely wrong.

Sorry, I'm waffling because I don't know the answer yet I see how worried you are about a situation that frankly should be reported to the media or T.D.

For officials to cause you such distress is disgusting and I wish you all the best.
 
Thanks Nick.

It seems no one anywhere knows the correct answer but all i can go by is the social. My brother is really good with anything to do with carpentry and to say to him now look forget it you can't help seems unfair on everyone. My young daughter suddenly got seriously ill out of nowhere and we are paying private and that is where our shortfall for the time being is with paying labour. So at the moment we cannot pay for help on labour for the roof and why i wanted the block layer all finished and cleared up as the last 9k for materials is being paid next week also and that would have us up to date and see where we are at once we have my daughters results and hopefully diagnosis and then see where we go from there money wise/house wise.

I am going to get something in writing with the solicitor to name the family member's that have helped out so far and that they have helped for free. There has been 4 family member's that have done bits here and there.

It just seems unfair that we can no longer help each other out here and there. But that's life.
 
I don't see a real problem here other than one public servant taking too restricted a view of the situation. Your brother was not doing "voluntary work" in the sense for which the rules were drawn up: he was doing a favour for a family member. It can reasonably be presumed that if paid work became available, he would take it.
 
I think there is a distinction between voluntary work and unpaid work and have added "unpaid" work to the title.
 
Thanks. I never put the heading of voluntary on it. That just came on it. I didn't think it would have came under that but anyway it is still not allowed so makes no difference.

Thank you everyone for the advice. I appreciate it.
 
Demented1 said:
. That you cannot work for nothing for anyone including a family member and that if he wants to do it then he could register as self employed and come off the social welfare even though we'd be giving him nothing.

.
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Do the social welfare rules actually state this? Or is the guy in social welfare making it up as he goes along.

Gipimann who is the expert on this posted up some of the rules on voluntary work, but nowhere does it say a family member is not allowed to do work for nothing for a relation.
 
One wonders how far down this goes. Say your mother is on jobseeker's benefit and a daughter leaves a child with mother for the afternoon while taking another child for hospital appointment. Surely this can't be illegal?
Isn't there some phrase about "natural love and affection" that allows us to be kind to our family members?
 
Kind of a grey area isn't. If you want be pedantic about it hes not working for free. The State is paying him. The only thing I can think of is similar to this, would be creating an intern work experience position, that would enable him to retain his payments and work. I don't know the rules around that though.
 
AlbacoreA said:
Kind of a grey area isn't. If you want be pedantic about it hes not working for free. The State is paying him. The only thing I can think of is similar to this, would be creating an intern work experience position, that would enable him to retain his payments and work. I don't know the rules around that though.
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What if he only does it on a Sunday, or in the evenings outside of "normal" working hours...
 
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