Am both part time employed and part time self employed. I qualify for SMP- can I still do my self employed work over and above the 10 KIT days?

[Thandeka]

I know if I were to claim MA then I could only work 10 days during my mat leave, but since I qualify for SMP then I will claim this instead. Now I have read several times on here that if you are being paid SMP you can do as much self employed work as you want. This was backed up by references but they seem out of date and I can't seem to find the answer anywhere and not entirely sure who to contact to find it out!
Probably not planning on doing loads of self employed work but would be nice to know I could.....

Does anyone have the uptodate definitive answer on this (from a reliable resource not some other parenting website which is all the links I seem to be able to find- I don't want to end up wrong side of the tax man!)

[wingandprayer]

I am bookmarking this as I have worked during both my maternity periods. I spoke to IR help line at time and they were bit mystified - apparently it's quite rare to want to work while on SMP! I have fear of god may come back to haunt me so please excuse me lurking about in case proper answer comes along...

[Thandeka]

have emailed HMRC to ask.....

[LadyMuck]

The section you want is here

This is taken from the HMRC manual on SMP. This is their official manual and the guidance as to how they interpret the law, and is published under Freedom of Information. MPP = maternity pay period.
Just to be clear, the manual also states here that you cannot get SMP if you work for your liable employer outside of your KIT days. Now it is pretty difficult, but not impossible, to be employed and self-employed and "work" for the same person, but I would be very careful if you were asked to do anything on a self-employed basis for the person paying you SMP.

[Thandeka]

Thankyou so much for that Ladymuck- much appreciated.

Oooh that will be an interesting one for me as I work within same borough- so I work as a teacher in a school - so technically employer is local education authority (but I would consider it to be the school) and then I work as a freelance adviser for the LEA (but funding is currently NHS) which means sometimes I go into my own school to do the self employed work but am not employed by the school to do the work.

Hmmmmm I hope they are clearly different enough!

[LadyMuck]

Well the legislation talks about working under a contract of service (which is the usually terminology for employee status, self employed would be contract for services). There is a risk that your "self-employed" work might be seen as employed work which would blow your SMP - you can work for your liable employer for up to 10 KIT days, but not for anyone else. But provided you are genuinely working under a contract for services, then you should be able to work for the LEA under that contract without affecting your SMP.

I think that the difficulty that you are going to have with your email is that there is a high probability that the person receiving it will only look at the manual and not at the underlying legislation, and it may fall into the "too difficult" box.

[Thandeka]

I didnt spell it out that much in the email- more I am employed and self employed can I claim SMP if I carry on with self employed work type email.

I would imagine there definitely won't be more than 10 days in my own school (so worst case scenario they could be seen as KIT days) and since I would be working in other schools as part of my self employed contract I think there is a clearer separation of employed/self employed work. Hmm I might double check with the LEA and see what they think.

Thanks again Ladymuck- how do you know all this stuff?!

[Thandeka]

And the reply from the email is in:
So yay!

Dear Sir/Madam
Thank you for your email.

While on maternity leave it would only be employed work that could possibly effect the maternity pay after the 10 KIT days had been used.

Self employed work does not effect your right to the maternity pay, you can do self employed work while on maternity leave and still be paid maternity pay for the same period.

Yours faithfully,

Employer Helpline
www.hmrc.gov.uk