Summary:
Through efforts to pierce the corporate veil, three constants have emerged from the case law, reflecting Parliament’s desire to cover all income directly or indirectly related to work, in contrast to income from straight investment. These constants are: 1) the legal status of the operation or business in which the self-employed worker is engaged is of no importance; 2) the relative importance of the time devoted to the operation or business changes nothing; and 3) current receipt (i.e., during the period of unemployment) of income from the operation or business is not required; the simple entitlement to such income suffices.
Labourer for the farm from 4-07 to 21-10-94, and also engaged in a co-adventure (with 40% of the shares in the business). Advised to declare 15% of her income from the farm. The BOR found that she was not a self-employed worker but simply a worker, and that her income from the farm should not be taken into account. This decision was set aside by the FCA, which ruled that a distinction cannot be made, from the regulatory provision, between the self-employed worker and the worker who operates a business, as the BOR did. The income from the farm that the claimant received after her lay-off, when she continued to render services to the business even though she did not devote more than an hour and a half to it per day, five days a week, have value as earnings and must be deducted from the benefits.
