Maternity Allowance for self employed

[childmindermk]

Hi i am a child minder and am currently 6 months pregnant.
I have downloaded and printed off the Maternity Allowance claim form and noticed that it says they need you to send in your payslips for proof earnings, but as i am a child minder i dont have payslips!

I can work out my earnings from bank statements and can show them these, will that be ok?

Has anyone else been self employed and not had the payslips to show them?
What happend?

Any info anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated, before i try to phone them to ask, and end up on hold for ages!

thanks so much.

When you're self employed, you don't do the sending in payslips thing, if you've been paying NIC2 then you get the full amount based on that. I did, anyway. As long as you have been working in the qualifying period of time.

From the dwp guide:

"If you are self-employed and do not have a small earnings exception certificate, for any week covered by a Class 2 NI contribution you will be treated as having enough earnings to result in the standard rate of MA, payable at the end of the week covered by a Class 2 NI contribution. This means that:

From 7 April 2008 treated as earning £130.20
From 6 April 2009 treated as earning £136.73
From 12 April 2010 treated as earning £138.75
Jobcentre Plus will ask HM Revenue & Customs to confirm the information you give about your Class 2 NI contributions on your MA claim form"

thanks so much,i have been paying NIC2 since i began childminding 7 years ago and still am so i should get the full amount then!

Great news!

thanks again, saves me trying to ring them!

No problem :)

iknow you didn't ask this, but anyway...i found it so frustrating that there is no equivalent alternative for paternity pay. ie fathers who are employed get statutory pay but fathers self employed get nothing....unless anyone out there knows any dfferent, i called the benefits helpline and got transferred to 6 different people who didn't know and then eventually someone who said there's no such thing as paternity allowance.

I totally agree with you muslimah! It is really awful that fathers seem to be forgotten about just because they are self employed!
Thankfully my OH is employed so thats not an issue for us, its just me thats self employed!

I'm in a similar situation. I'm self employed and own a small shop. While I'm on maternity leave I will have to employ someone to run it for me. As the shop will still be trading and making a profit while I'm away I don't believe I'll be entitled to MA even though I'm having to pay the wage I usually draw to someone else. Which means I'll be left with nothing. It doesn't seem fair to me.

greyfurrybaby - is that something your accountant could look into? Are you a sole trader or limited company, because I was under the impression that as the latter you are an employee? Could be wrong though.

greyfurrybaby that's really bad i had no idea! surely its just the same situation as a company who employs someone to cover a job,the person on maternity leave still gets maternity pay.

the last gov did lots to improve maternity legislation but there are still lots of anomolies by the sounds of it...