Self employment, maternity allowance and owed pay-help!

[AntoinetteCosway]

I am marking for AQA this summer, which is in addition to my self employed tutoring business (ie they will deduct tax etc). The final day of marking is 10th July and then I'll do a couple more sessions of private tuition and go on maternity leave at 37 weeks on 17th July. AQA probably won't pay me until some time in August-they are notoriously slow and crap. HMRC won't consider me employed until AQA pay me, right? Last day of employment is the last day of marking? There are no contracts to refer to. This has just made me panic. I don't want to get in trouble before I begin and I don't want to lose all my KIT days to 'employment' that isn't my actual SE business and isn't work just because they're slow to pay!

I'm self employed and pay class 2 National Insurance contributions. (Relevant).

When I claimed MA in 2012, they didn't take into account any "earnings" as such or pay dates, they just saw I had been paying my Class 2 Self Employed NI contributions and gave me MA accordingly as they work on the basis that you've been earning over £138/week for the qualifying period of 26 weeks. I certainly didn't have to prove income - it was all done based on my NI contributions.

I returned my self employed tax return at the right time to HMRC, paid relevant tax and that was that. No mention of "when" I was paid for jobs - my earnings are sporadic and come in lump sums through the year depending on how hard I've worked and when the invoices are paid. I sent in my Self Employed tax return as normal, at the end of January.

Probably the best thing to do is have a chat to the people on the Maternity Allowance helpline. 0345 608 8610.

This time around, I'll be doing the same thing - my NI contributions are up to date, so I'll be using those as "proof of income" IYSWIM?

Yes, I'm all paid up with NI, so that should be fine-it's more that if they consider me employed until I'm paid then they'll take away my maternity allowance because you're only allowed to work 10 days while on mat leave-and if that's the case I'd be better off if I didn't do the marking at all, as I'll only earn about £1000 from it and don't want to risk losing all my maternity allowance because of that. But if they consider me employed until the end of the marking period, which finishes before my maternity leave and allowance start, then I'm fine.

I think you're right I just need to call them and ask. I have zero faith in the people at the end of the phone though!

It's because the marking doesn't come under self employed earnings-I'm technically employed by AQA for a few weeks.

I don't think I'm being very clear-sorry!