Originally Posted by Chris

I'll have to ask my father in law (the accountant) ... he knows what all the deductions and allowances are. The great thing when your home is the business is that certain household bills, or a proportion of them, become payable by the business. You don't pay tax on the money that pays those bills - only on what you pay yourself as income after all those things are deducted. So we can earn £9k each, pay no income tax on it, and have lower bills to pay out of it.

This is why I think the rapid increase in personal allowance is such a fundamentally good thing. It makes it far easier to plan and to start a small business without worrying about the jump from benefits to low earnings.