Maternity pay - net amount received

[alisonmcg]

Hello all

Sorry if this question has been asked before, I'm just new on here! I have very recently found out that I am pregnant with my first child and have started to think about all the practicalites including money. I've done a bit of searching about statutory maternity pay as this will be all I get when on leave however nowhere actually gives a figure that you will recieve. I was wondering if anybody would be willing to tell me how much money they actually receive each month after any tax or NI has been deducted? I know that this can vary due to the start date of your maternity leave and how much income you will have already earned in the tax year but if I could just get a rough idea of how much I will get that would be really helpful in figuring out how much of my savings I will need to live off of when on leave.

Thanks for all your help!

Unless anything has changed - Statutory maternity pay is tax and ni free,

I'm not sure how it works if your company pays any extra.

It depends on your personal circumstances -you could always try the HMRC calculator here:

smpcalculator.hmrc.gov.uk/SMP1.aspx

Look at tge directgov website, it will depend on your tax code.

It is really dependent on tax code and how much you have already been paid that tax year. Just under higher rate tax at time DD born in Jan mat leave started in dec finished second week of April only on SMP. Only last week of mat pay did not have tax and NI deducted.

SMP is NOT tax and NI free. It is taxable like any other income but if your total income for the year is under the personal tax free alowance you will pay no tax.

Oooo, how did I miss this.

For the first six weeks you will get 90% of your average earnings (calculated as explained here). This will work out a bit more than 90% after tax and NI.

For the next 33 weeks, you will get £135.45 (2012/13 rate), or 90% of average salary if less. You should not pay NI at this rate, and because this is less than the weekly personal allowance (£8,105 / 52 = £155.87) you should actually get a small tax refund of about £4 a week leaving you with about £139.50 overall. From 6 April 2013 the tax refund will stop but the SMP rate should go up by a similar amount.

These figures should be accurate for normal earnings between about £9,000 and £42,000.

HTH

Oops, should have said these figures should be accurate for normal earnings between about £9,000 and £42,000 and a normal tax code (i.e. no adjustment for company car etc.)

Hi all,

Thanks very much for your replies, you have been very helpful and have given me a better idea about how much I will receive!

This is a brilliant website, very helpful!

Thanks again

Alison

Congrats on the impending arrival, alison!