working tax credits and holidays..

[stella1w]

have tried to find the answer to this on directgov, but no job and wonder if anyone here knows the answer.
I have been receiving working tax credits while on SMP for nine months. I will be on maternity leave for a further three months, during which I will not receive working tax credits.
I've accrued some holiday leave while on maternity leave that I will probably tag onto maternity leave. So I will be on payroll for a few weeks before actually working in the office.
When can I start receiving working tax credits? Once I start being paid again (even if on holiday?) or once Iam back in the office?

During that 3 months unpaid you are still employed so I thought you could still get WTC then? You should definately get them during the annual leave period though.

I checked with tax credits helpline and they said only get them for the nine months of maternity leave that I get SMP.. (seems to mirror the way I am only getting contractual benefits from my employer for those nine months). So there's three months of uncovered maternity leave, although I can get working tax credit runon for a month of that..
anyway, I'm interested to know if I get wtc during annual leave in case I have to hire a nanny for that period (I don't want to lose her to another family)

I don't know anything about WTC ( although presumably you still get them when you take annual leave normally so the fact that you will have just finished a period of mat leave should make no difference to that), but you are entitled to your contractual benefits throughout the whole of your maternity leave, not just for the 9 months you are getting paid, so don't let your employer get away with stopping them at 9 months.

sorry I should clarify.. my employer has been deducting my life insurance costs etc from my SMP which will stop after nine months, so has requested I pay the cost of it for the remaining three months.

I thought they weren't allowed to make deductions from SMP???

Yes why are your life assurance costs being deducted from SMP and assuming you don't normally pay for it, why are you being asked to pay for it during maternity leave? You are entitled to receive your normal contractual benefits throughout maternity leave as I said earlier, and costs for these can't be deducted from SMP or demanded from you.

mmmm... I think I normally pay for these benefits out of my regular salary, so they were taken from my SMP. Now SMP has stopped, my employer says they will take the cost of these benefits from my first pay packet when I return to work.
are they not allowed to make deductions from SMP?

No, they can't make any deductions from SMP - they would need to pay for the benefits themselves during your mat leave; this is similar to the non-cash benefits issue surrounding nursery vouchers!!

ah... I will check again. Maybe they HAVE been paying for my benefits, not deducting them from SMP but now that SMP is over, they want to deduct them again from my future pay.. thanks for the tip