SMP for private piano teacher

[HenD19]

I teach piano privately at home and for one morning a week in a local high school. I'm not sure what to do about maternity pay. Any ideas anyone?

Are you an employee of the school or do you just provide your services there to more private students? And if you are an employee how long will you have you been employed when you reach 25 weeks pg.

Have you paid class II National Insurance Cintributions? And if so for how long when you reach 25 weeks pg?

I am employed by the school but haven't signed a contract. I invoice them every few weeks. No tax or national insurance is taken from my payments from them. I've taught at the school for 1 1/2 yrs. Quite a lot of my private pupils give me cash in hand. I'm just not sure if I'm entitled to any sort of maternity pay/benefits that everyone is entitled to?

It sounds like you are a contractor rather than employee.

How do you account for your income and how do you pay Tax and NI? Do you have a Ltd company or would you class yourself as self employed?

Sounds like you are self employed, do you not pay class 2 contributions? It's about £10 a month, if you are upto date on them you should get maternity allowance. Maybe ring the job centre as they send out the forms I think?

How are you paying tax and NI?

I don't understand the bit about being employed but invoicing? Are you teaching anyone the school says you have to, or just specific pupils? What would happen if you just didn't turn up one day?

To be entitled to anything you have to have paid some national insurance. What you get and how you claim depends on your employment status and NI contributions.

Just because you are paid cash in hand by many pupils does not excuse you from keeping accounts and declaring your income. Are you registered as self employed with hmrc? Do you complete a tax return?

Just as an aside we don't know nearly enough from the current posts to be able to establish the op's employment status.

I think you are most likely to be freelance/self employed at the school. You need to check your employment status with them. If you a member of the Musicians Union, they can give you advice about whether you would be eligible for SMP via an employer or whether you should apply for MA via the job centre. SMP and MA are paid at the same level for the same number of weeks.

Thanks for all your responses. I am self employed and will check entitlement as suggested at job centre. I won't tell if u won't katiemiddleton though going by your name you may have friends in high places!