Maternity allowance

[Clemmie83]

Just looking for some maternity allowance advice, in the 66 week qualifying period I understand that I need to be employed/self employed for 26 weeks...

So far I have;
13 weeks of continuous employment (I was then made redundant)
10 weeks of self employment in which I have paid class 2 national insurance contributions in my tax return up until April 2020.

I'm due to submit my claim for maternity allowance at the end of August and whilst I'm still self employed, I won't be completing my next tax return until April 2021. I'm 3 weeks short of making up my 26 weeks which I will have been self employed for but will not have paid my class 2 national insurance for yet.

Does anyone know what will happen in this situation?

Will you have worked for 26 weeks by the time the baby is born? They will write to you and invite you to pay the required contributions to get full maternity allowance

If you’re self-employed

To get the full amount of Maternity Allowance, you must have paid Class 2 National Insurance for at least 13 of the 66 weeks before your baby’s due.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will check if you’ve paid enough when youmake your claim. They’ll write to you if you have not.

If you have not paid enough Class 2 National Insurance to get the full rate (£151.20 a week), you’ll get £27 a week for 39 weeks. You still need to meet all the other eligibility criteria to get this amount.

You may be able to get the full rate by making early National Insurance payments. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will send you a letter to tell you how.

You’ll need to pay using the reference number in the letter to get the full rate, even if you’ve recently made a payment through Self Assessment.

@dementedpixie Thanks for coming back to me. I will have worked over 26 weeks by the time I make my claim, 13 of which being employed and the rest being self employed. My employed income was high however my self employed income has been low so far due to the Covid situation. Does income come into the self employed element or does it not matter as long as you've paid class 2 national insurance contributions?

Maternity Allowance for 39 weeks

You might get Maternity Allowance for 39 weeks if one of the following applies:

• you’re employed, but you cannot get Statutory Maternity Pay
• you’re self-employed and pay Class 2National Insurance(includingvoluntary National Insurance)
• you’ve recently stopped working

In the 66 weeks before your baby’s due, you must also have been:

• employed or self-employed for at least 26 weeks
• earning (or classed as earning) £30 a week or more in at least 13 weeks - the weeks do not have to be together

You may still qualify if you’ve recently stopped working. It does not matter if you had different jobs or periods of unemployment.

(You need have earned £30 or more in 13 weeks out of the 26 and have made sufficient Class 2 contributions to get the full amount)

I suppose that alternatively you could use the payslips from the 13 weeks of when you were an employee if 90% of that would take you over £151.20 anyway

You get the option to make in year NI contributions for the weeks in your qualifying period since April. After you apply you get a letter from HMRC asking if you want to make the additional payment, then they report back to the maternity allowance people. For self employed people it doesn't matter what you earn, you get the full amount if you've paid NI for 13 weeks.

Thank you both, that fills me with more confidence...

In the 13 weeks I was an employee my weekly earnings far exceeded the threshold you've mentioned and then I've already paid 10 weeks NI since being self employed so I'm taking from what you've said they'll write to me asking if I want to pay NI for the remaining 3 weeks? (I will have been self employed for these just not paid NI yet)

If that's right then it makes me feel a lot better, I've been worrying so much that I won't qualify and financially it makes quite a big difference.

Do you know if having to do the NI top-up slows the process down a lot?

Application takes ages, so send the form in as early as possible. Last year I applied in the middle of June for payments to start 1st August, baby was born 6th September, and was 6 weeks old by the the money came through. They did back date it, so it was a big payment when it came, but was a bit stressful waiting on it.

@ForeverBubblegum I thought it might take a while! Was that just a normal application or did you also have to make additional payments to HMRC which slowed it down?

If you need to pay the extra contributions, they'll let you know how much - huge difference between £27 a week and £150 per week.

I was dreading how much it would be.

It was £18.

@barneymcgroo Exactly, such a huge difference! That's why I want to make sure I've ticked every box to ensure I get the full payment! 🤞🏻

With mine I had played enough on my tax return, but HMRC hadn't processed it in time for it to show up on the maternity allowance system. Mat. Allowance referred to HMRC to ask for payment, HMRC could see I'd paid so sent it back, and it just bounced between the two for months.

Just so you don't panic, when maternity allowance first refer to HMRC they send you a letter saying you will get £28. Don't worry, you get a second letter with the full amount after you make the payment.

@ForeverBubblegum Thanks for the heads up, that's my biggest fear, being stuck on £28 a week! 😐