Permitted work earnings for self employed.

Hi,

Please can someone help, I've called the DWP and they will not give me an answer over the phone to this.

I've been doing permitted work (ESA support group) for a year or two now, starting with very occasional work and slowly increasing what I'm doing. I'm self employed but have a regular freelance job at the moment. I have been doing approx 10 hours a week for £120 but the opportunity has arisen to take on some more hours. Obviously I am at the earnings limit but not the hours limit but this £120 does not include any of my running costs for my business. My 17/18 averages out at £93 a week including a couple of periods of not working but not including rent expenses which I need to figure out before filing my tax return! I've never exceeded 16 hours and do not expect that I will in the foreseeable future. I invoice monthly as my hours vary each week depending on my health.

As I understand it, it is my averaged net profit that should be counted? However I just received my 'tell us about your work/volunteering' form and it only refers to a) employment and b) gross profit. Should I just send them a letter back saying I am self employed and detailing my average hours and net earnings for last tax year?

Secondly, and more importantly, how does averaging work with larger expenses. For example, I need to buy a new macbook pro to continue my work as a graphic designer. I know with averaging hours/salary it is taken over 5 weeks or a longer period if no pattern can be found (and I think a pattern could be found over a month) but will this also apply to expenses? Obviously a macbook pro is not an expense I would be averaging out over 5 weeks and would expect to offset it over the entire tax year.

My hope is that I could work 12-14 hours a week with a net profit of under £125 a week but am very concerned if I go ahead with this I will be slapped with a fine, or possibly worse, stuck on to UC.

Can anyone advise if I'm breaking any rules here, or on very dodgy ground? I would really like to increase my hours a little bit but I am not well enough to be working 16+ hours a week (or possibly 35 under the minimum income floor on UC)

Agh now I'm panicking, it looks like I don't have an up to date permitted work letter - I have one from 2012 when I first started doing supported permitted work which says I can do that for an indefinite period of time. Since then I've just been filling in the 'about your work or voluntary work' letters when they've been sent - outlining that I do 7-10 hours a week of self employed work in various different roles.

What should I do now.... fill out a new PW1 form or just keep filling in the about your work letters as they come?! Are you always allowed to do permitted work?