Do I need to stop my childcare vouchers weeks 17-25 pregnancy?

[Treesandbees]

Really confused! I read that SMP is calculated during this time. Do I need to stop claiming childcare vouchers during this period to ensure I get full SMP or do these not affect the calculation?

They affect the calculation of and additional maternity pay provided by employer. Not sure about SMP. It's a good time to work overtime too.

The difference might be pretty marginal depending on your salary.

You need to earn a certain amount, I think 111 quid a week, in order to get SMP. Vouchers act as a salary sacrifice so if you didn't earn that amount because you were giving up salary to vouchers then you would want to stop them. Otherwise it doesn't make a difference

Your SMP (and usually any enhanced maternity pay from your employer) is calculated during this period.

For most people, the increase from stopping vouchers during the calculation period would make a slight difference to the SMP they get in the first six weeks of maternity leave.

If you are borderline for qualifying for SMP or it will affect your whole SMP because you are a low earner, it can be more important.

But employers are under no obligation to facilitate this type of frequent change to arrangements, and many won't. Many have set dates a year on which you can make changes, plus a list of events (such as birth of a baby). Because it's a lot of faff for the employer to have people stopping and starting. And, frankly, it's gaming the system a bit. You get to keep the vouchers during mat leave (without 'paying' for them once3 on SMP) so having the money as well is double counting. If your employer is stingy I understand people doing this, but if they are offering decent mat pay, I can understand them wanting to stop that.

OP my work are pretty to the book on what you get benefits wise, i.e. They only pay the minimum amount they have to... And they told me the other week that when an employee recently went on mat leave for DC2, and she had been receiving like £500 a month of childcare vouchers for DC1, they actually had to pay the whole amount for her for the whole year she was off! As childcare vouchers are deemed under a certain type of benefit they weren't allowed to take them into consideration when working out SMP... She said it flippantly that its a loophole in the system and it really screwed them over having to pay out for her, but when they actually looked into it there was nothing they could do... However she did say that whoever at HMRC/government she spoke to actually said that most companies will try their luck and play dumb to try and persuade their employee off the record to drop their vouchers a few months before mat leave, as once they stop it, they then can't restart or change to a higher rate within x amount of weeks before their new baby is born, to stop people from abusing the system... But technically their not really allowed to do this, as they should be taking the costs on as a hit. In my company they do it too, but with this particular woman she had done her research and contested it, hence they ended up paying for it...

So before you make any decisions, speak to HMRC or look on the government's website as I'm sure I found something on there about it when I was reading up on company benefits...

However things like Pension you pay into and benefits like car scheme/private healthcare etc. You will still be liable for. But you can usually reduce to a lower amount whilst on leave without it affecting your policy x

The maximum is £243 a month and it is a non-cash benefit so you are perfectly entitled to them during maternity leave. I'd be seriously annoyed if my employer was describing me as screwing them over.

How rude! You are perfectly entitled to the vouchers. The only thing that could be said to be a bit cheeky is getting both the vouchers and smp calculated as if you didn't have vouchers. Doesn't sound like she dis that.

I didn't make a change because as people say it's barely anythjng and it's such a faff to change the amount for a few weeks.

And you are entitled to vouchers while on maternity leave. So given I only get SMP, my company is effectively paying £243 a month for them after the first 6 weeks. And I'm taking a year off. Hardly anything I would complain about.

Careful with this. With the new system coming in in the autumn, if you leave the old one after a certain date soon (not sure exactly when) you won't be able to rejoin and will have to join the new one when it starts which may not work out better for you.

Thanks for all the messages. I think may have messed up!! I stopped them in advance as I was approaching 17 weeks but as I'm not near the SMP threshold and do get enhanced mat pay its probably wasn't worth stopping them. I tried to log back into the system and it let my reactivate them but I missed the cut off for this month so basically stopped them for 1 month. I spoke to HR before stopping them for their advice and they were zero help so I went ahead and stopped them myself but I didn't formally notify payroll etc and no one contacted me to confirm anything. Do you think I 'got away' with it?

I really hope hope so as the vouchers whilst I'm off would really make a difference to us!!