It's impossible to calculate maternity leave pay

[Fortuny]

Just that really. Finally got my ML3 through 2.5 months after submitting my forms.

Despite me trying to work it out I've got the numbers wrong. Now I'm trying to understand Tax, NI and Student Loan deductions and it feels absolutely impossible! I get very little back from HR and can't find any kind of online calculator to help.

I can't believe it's this hard, do most mothers just have a rough idea and hope for the best?

In order to work this out yourself you’d have to be proficient at manual tax calcs.

I generally use the rule of thumb of Tax Code 1215L for example, add a zero to the end gives you an estimated tax free allowance. 12150. Divide by 12. It then depends if you’re in the 20/40/50% tax brackets plus any additional deductions; pension, student loan, childcare vouchers etc.

More complicate again if you get company maternity pay on top of the government standard SMP. If you want to DM me I could certainly work it out for you as an estimate but it’ll take an age to explain fully.

Hi Op I found this website really helped maternity.money/calculator @Fortuny . You put in your company’s policy. You can change the pension contribution and select a student loan repayment plan. Doesn’t let you make other deductions such as benefits, but you could deduct that from your pre-tax gross pay and input the smaller number as your gross pay in the calculator.

For more specific options setting, www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk is a good option. They have a “maternity/sick pay” tab.

without these, no I couldn’t get the numbers right!

www.gov.uk/government/collections/how-to-manually-check-your-payroll-calculations

HMRC have good calculators, but you’ll need to do each month in turn, and add the results to the previous month to be sure you’re using the correct YTD figures. Try and replicate your wages since April on it, then you’ll know you’re using it correctly

Student Loan is your gross monthly pay, less any salary sacrifice items (pension is the usual one) and if it’s over the annual threshold / 12 for your type of student loan then it’s 9% of the amount over the threshold, rounded down to the nearest full pound. It doesn’t matter what you paid the month before, the calculations are done per month (assuming you’re monthly paid). If at the end of the year, your gross pay less annual threshold x 9% is less than you’ve paid over you can claim it back.

Oh and if you are lucky they pay you based on the number of Sundays in the month, first month I got mine I couldn’t make it add up at all

Thanks all, really appreciate this. Looking at the suggested calcs now.

I get paid every 4 weeks, so sadly no extra Sundays for me!

I feel your pain. I work for the NHS and they've been an absolute ball ache to deal with. Neither HR nor payroll can give me the same straight answer and I go on leave next week. Add to that they've once managed to overpay me and declined to take the money back on more than one occasion, and one month they just decided not to pay me, and had the cheek to ask me if I could wait a month. Errr fuck no, I have a mortgage to pay?! Tomorrow?!? So I don't hold out much hope for the end of August, especially as I've just been promoted so that's gunna throw them for a loop 🙄

Hello, hope you are well, apologies as I know it is a long time since you posted, but I have just been looking up the same thing and stumbled across your post. Payroll have provided a breakdown before Tax and NI, but really I need it after and working out with tax free allowance etc. does the offer still stand to help if I send to you directly?