Maternity Allowance

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Hi, am filling out all of my forms and going through all my payslips - trying to find months where I earnt the most- does anyone have any experience of this? Basically two of the months I received a company bonus- will this be taken into consideration as earnings as it is separate to the 'salary' amount?

Any precious experiences would be GREAT, as I know this months pay will involve overtime so I will hold out and wait to claim once I have October's payslip if it will mean I get a little more?

Money is tight and I have just missed the cut off for SMP so am really gutted :( every little bit will help a lot

Sorry I can't offer help, but I'll have to do this in a while. How does it work, do you choose your best 22 weeks?

What are you trying to calculate?

Maternity allowance is generally a flat rate, unless you earn less than approx £135 per week. Why do you need to make your earnings as high as possible?

Sorry, that came out garbled, it is generally a flat rate of approx £135 per week provided you earn over a threshold (the threshold to pay NI I think, is that still about £30?)

From what I can make out there are 13 weeks (don't have to be in order) worth of pay and you send them payslips which cover this and they work out your average earnings in this period. (They have to be in your 'test period' which you look up based on your DDate)

But I've got a few months where I've taken holiday and or received a bonus, so I'm wondering if they count 'holiday pay' and 'company bonus' as 'gross earnings' as it doesn't state even in the ''help booklet''.

Ahhh so stressful and I despise filling out forms like this!! Feel so robbed when I earn about 25p a week below the cutoff for SMP!

Yeh £30 a week is the minimum you must earn, but because I earn below £136 a week I think they pay 90% of your average weekly wage ?! It's got me sending off a selection of payslips ... Ahh!

Oh, so you earn less than £107 per week? I see what you mean then. I don't know I am afraid. Have you tried direct.gov.uk?

Ok, thinking more. If it was SMP you would be able to include bonuses. Maybe MA is the same

Yeh I earn about 105-106, gutting. Well, most months I do a little bit of over time which puts me above, however it turns out there is only a certain period they take into consideration which turns out I earnt basic and had a few sick days. If I was due several weeks later I think I would have qualified also, which adds salt to the wound.

I had absolutely no idea I wouldn't qualify.. I work 16 hours a week and qualified with DD1 (i worked more hours back then so I should have stopped to think) but this is all stressing me out and I may be better off if i hold on for Oct's payslip, it will just mean having a small gap between my wages ending and MA starting.

Have looked previously at their website thank you though. I am trying to remain hopeful! Thank you!!

As long as you earn enough to qualify for NI contributions you are entitled to MA. Just send your 4 highest wage slips off.

Just give them a call, they r really helpful on the phone and will tell for sure if hol pay is taken into account. They took extra hours into account with me. If not is going to be 90% of ur wages up to a a max of 135.

I checked my bank account then had to ask work to re issue some payslips, for some reason the ones i had at home were all small amounts. So double check :).

Good luck.

I filled out my application two weeks ago and they specified what wage slips they wanted.

Do you have the dates of when you can 'choose' your wage slips from and to?

I didn't have to send any payslips off. They said as long as I was paying NI (can't remember which class, but the one that's a couple of pounds a week) then I was eligible for MA. So unless you applied for small earnings exemption you should be ok.

I am pretty sure maternity allowance is paid if you paid national insurance class 2 contributions for the 22 weeks in your test period.

i am self employed and about to claim it so it may be different for self employment.

give the maternity allowance help line a call. they are very nice when i spoke to them in a tiz.

You can claim at 26 weeks but the earliest they start paying is 29 weeks. I am counting down days/hours/minutes till i can claim finished work last week (24 weeks) due to stress and illness.

I've just started to claim my MA (haven't been in my current job for long enough to be eligible for SMP) and I claimed it with ds too, as with him I was self-employed at the time. You just send off your pay slips for your highest earning 4 months - I wouldn't get bogged down with holidays and bonuses, just send the highest 4 months. It won't affect your MA - so long as you have earned above the minimum amount of about £30 a week, you'll get your MA. After sending my forms back it took about 3 or 4 weeks for me to get a letter confirmation that I was entitled to the MA. Then when you go on your mat leave you send it back to them to start claiming. x

I chose the ones with the highest under gross (which isn't called gross on my payslips its called either pensionable pay or taxable pay?)