Tax Credits whilst on Maternity leave

[aimee2013]

Hi

I was hoping someone could help me if you have been in a similar situation...

I am due to give birth to my first child in May. I am currently working and my employer is aware of my pregnancy and I will receive statutory maternity pay. I am going to be a single parent as the father is not around. I ideally want to take 8-9 months off maternity leave but it all depends on what help I will receive as I won't be able to pay bills and rent without extra income. I have my years holiday allowance left too but I was hoping to take this before I go on mat leave just trying to work out if I can afford to be off for 8 months.

Does anyone know how much I might be likely to receive whilst on maternity leave other than statutory maternity pay. I know HMRC deal with this but they have been most unhelpful and won't give me any advice on how much until the baby is born. Any help would be good. I don't want to take all my holiday beforehand to find out I can't afford to be off work and need to go back and have no holiday left for the rest of the year.

Many thanks

Aimee

You can (roughly) calculate it yourself on www.entitledto.co.uk - you need to work out how much you will be paid excluding the time you are off work, then add on how much you get maternity pay -£100 per week you are on mat leave (so 6 weeks at 90% salary, minus £600, then the same for SMP weeks). That will give you your annual income for tax credits. Bear in mind it's not an exact way to work it out, my final award was around £70 per month less than I expected but it went up the following tax year.