Child tax credits and other stuff while on maternity leave

[Nottodaymavis1982]

Not sure this is the best place for this, but I'm hoping someone can help! I'm in the pretty early stages of pregnancy but am worried about money already. I have a 10 year old who is not in childcare and currently work full time as does my partner. We arent entitled to anything except child benefit at the moment. Obviously when I go on maternity and get smp, which is all my company offers (well, as in they dont offer anything!) Our income will drop hugely. I've looked on entitled to and it all seems to be based on the previous years earnings, which will be based on when we were both full time. It doesnt seem right - am I right in presuming that once I'm actually on maternity leave they will see if we are entitled to anything based on my earnings at that point onwards? Thank you!!

nothing except child benefit....

Its very annoying. Im single...and paying a mortgage on that too :/

The problem is that there are no more tax credits. All UK councils are full service Universal Credit. You will need to make a new claim for UC. You may be entitled to some UC.

If I remember correctly if you state you are on maternity leave you are able to give an estimated income for the year and they base your payments upon that. Also whilst on maternity when working out an estimate you deduct the first £100 from each week also. (Something like that)

You would need to claim UC not TC. Your entitlement would depend on the previous month's income.

I am already on tax credits so not on universal credit. It's not in place every where yet and I get some housing benefits and council tax reduction. But I only work 16 hours

I don't know how it works with universal credit but we did get tax credits when I went on mat leave last time (nearly 2 years ago). We rang them and told them what it will be for the year instead of last years (your work will give you a schedule of payments if you ask so you can work it out for the tax year) and also they deduct a certain amount from that for each week on mat leave too. So worth ringing them although like I say dont know how it has changed now sorry