To recommend all sahms who might have another baby register as self employed...

[sillyoldfool]

...and pay their class 2 national insurance contributions?

If you register, and pay your NI you're entitled to the full amount of maternity allowance (£137 a week for 9 months) it doesn't matter how much, if anything, you earn. The NI contributions are less than £2 a week. If you pay them for 2 years you'll get the full amount back within a couple of weeks of MA.
So register, sell a couple of bits on test or similar, do a tax return once a year (very simple if you're not earning much) and then claim MA.

Etsy, not test!

sneaky

Is this actually legal?

Completely.

Plenty of self employed people make very little money, and for MA it's the NI contributions that count, not how much you earn/how much income tax you pay.

"If you
-are registered as self-employed, and
-have paid class 2 NI contributions, and
-do not hold a small earnings exemption certificate
you will be treated as having enough weekly earnings to result in the standard rate of MA for any week covered by that Class 2 NI contribution"

Taken from the booklet that comes with the MA claim form.

People have done this for years with tax credits, but you are not able when UC comes in. Even with tax credits though it wasn't just a simple tax return you had to prove you were running a business and if asked produce documentation.
With UC you have to work a min number of hours for a certain amount or lose your benefit. It is going to hit low income self emplyed very hard.
You can always volunteer to pay NI as a sahp anyway, I have always done this to protect my future pension. Just get in touch and sort out a dd.

When I claimed MA (almost 3 years ago), I had to provide 12 weeks of payslips within a certain period of weeks, so it could be calculated how much Maternity Allowance I was entitled. I got the full amount, but I was under the impression that an average of earnings was taken. Is it different if you have an employer?

I am technically self employed as a partner in my dh business. So yes I am currently receiving ma

I don't claim tax credits. I just registered as SE and paid class 2 NI, I work freelance, but even if I'd only earnt £2 last tax year that wouldn't change my entitlement to MA.

Yes it is different if you have an employer.

I assume the paperwork to deal with calculating SE people's average incomes is just not worth doing, so they use NI contributions to judge it instead.

It doesn't quite work like that I'm afraid. You do need to show an income to claim also the figure you quote is the maximum you can get but it's 90% of income up to £136.78 so say you have an average income over the qualifying period of £100 you would only get £90. If your average is below £30 you do not qualify at all.

MOre than - I thought the NI was paid re: pension through us getting child benefit? (Obviously not wrt MA).

Sneaky - wish I'd thought of it!

www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance/overview

That is true for those who are employed jack, but not if you are SE.
I am entitled to the full amount of MA because I have paid my class 2 NI. I have not been asked for any proof of income.

This is very very interesting to me. As wigglesrock said, when I had to claim MA last year because I hadn't been with my new employer the right amount of time to get SMP I had to send in payslips and the amount I received from MA was dependant on how much I had earnt. Before that I had been self employed for a decade and had always filled out my self assessment tax return and paid my NI.

I assumed you would have to prove you had worked a certain amount of hours or made a certain amount of money to be able to claim in a similar way to when I was employed.

If you are SE and pay full class twos you are entitled to the full MA. If you are self employed and hold a small earnings exemption certificate you are assumed to have earnt £30 a week and so get 90% of that.
There is no inbetween if you are SE.

I thought the same sebs mummy and was dreading sorting out the paperwork to prove my earnings.
All I actually had to do was tick the box saying I'm SE and paying class twos, I assume they then check you're up to date with payments and that's that.

It's a proper loophole which sahms could easily and totally legally exploit.

shocking that loopholes like this exist. if you choose not to work you forsake your entitlement to the things to help those that do.

www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance/eligibility
If you check this link it clearly states you need to be paying class 2 plus have the required income for self employment.

I know of a couple of friends who have been able to claim 2 lots of SMP simultaneously because they worked 2 part time jobs and paid NI on both. I'm employed part time and pay NI, but I have the chance to do some self employed work as well. If I took this on and paid NI on those earnings I wonder if I could claim 2 x SMP too. Would be well worth doing if so.

No, I recently claimed MA as I was self employed and I had to have earned more than 126 quid or whatever it is in the qualifying weeks.

You are misinformed.

But then on the other hand it encourages women who might earn nothing and pay no tax to register as SE and earn a little, which makes them economically active again, which is better for the economy.

I suspect it's mainly down to the amount of admin that would be caused if they tried to assess SE people's income though.