3 months unpaid mat but I’m still getting some money??

[Bookwormmama]

So I took 12 months maternity, I’m currently in the final month (I return 31st Dec). I was paid full for 6, stat for 3 and then the final 3 weeee suppose to be unpaid.
However the first 2 months of the ‘unpaid’ leave I was paid 250. When I’ve had my wage slips it looks like work pays me my full salary and then deduct it straight back. Then it looks like I get taxed and then that’s refunded too and the amount I get paid is around, but not exactly the same, as the tax. It looks to me like I’m being taxed and then rather refunding it back to work it’s refunded back to me. My partner thinks I’m just getting tax back because I overpaid it, but I don’t think they are that organised to do that and I would have just got it sorted in April instead.
today (we get paid our end of Dec wage before Christmas so it’s warly) I’ve woke up to 390! I still need to get my wage slips whenever that arrives in the post, but does anyone have any ideas what it could be?
I work for a very very large company, so if it’s a problem with paying and refunding, surely they would have picked up on that on the thousands of people that go on mat.
Im convinced I’ll have to pay it back so not getting my hopes up

I think that you need to get your December payslip and then ask work to help explain it to you.

Your boyfriend could be right. Lots of payroll systems connect automatically to hmrc so if you’re due tax money back they will be able to sort this automatically. But, typically this would be highest the first unpaid month and not increasing, so possibly not correct.

It could also be payment for things like unused holiday (this accrues on mat leave as though you were working) but this should show on payslips.

Thanks, I’ve just had a look at my payslip again and on one for example where I was paid £209 tax says -205 and then I pay 4 pound for a work lottery so that totals the 209.
the wage slip is usually clear if I’ve been getting any holiday pay or any other pay, I have a beginning but that lists all of that such as holidays, overtime pay, overtime back pay/holiday back pay, pension offset pay etc. all that is 0. It just has ‘salary - full’ ‘maternity absence offset - minus my full pay’

Back in the first part of the financial year the tax office would assume you would be paid the same all year and divided up the tax allowance accordingly. As it happens you haven't been so that is your personal allowance repaid to you essentially. It's correct.

Thank you! Completely makes sense and my partner sounds like he was right, it just sounded too good to be true. I had asked my friend who was on mat the year before and she said she got a weird payment in her last month but not the two months before, but she was part time and not paying much tax. And I was paying a lot of tax through the year even though my salary has almost halved this year. All makes sense and is hopefully correct