Self employed and pregnant

[mrswishywashy]

I'm now 19 weeks and really need to start getting organised.

So far I've found out that I can't earn while on maternity allowance unless I send someone in to do the work for me which is impossible.

I also have no idea if I've been paying both nic 2 & 4 which will have a huge impact on maternity allowance. Have looked back through all my hrmc paperwork and still no idea.

Have looked at the form to fill in online but it makes as much sense as if I was reading a book in a foreign language.

What do I need to do first? My brain is going to explode.

Do you have an accountant? Mine has been a huge help

Yes I do however when I asked him about maternity allowance he just said to contact job centre. Have their number so will get form sent out, see if can full it in and then see if they can help with in answered questions. Also have found letter from when I went self employed and it says I do pay nic 2, however I'm not sure if that's the direct debit coming out every few months or if it's the nic 4. Or do nic 4's just get added into self assessment payment? Quite annoyed at accountant as my paperwork isn't that hard and from others that run my kind of business I'm paying five times as much. Don't think I'll use him this year will make the leap and do it myself.

Have just recently sorted mine out; you basically need to have paid at least 13 weeks class 2 nics in your test period (there is a chart on the notes that you can work yours our from) and you are then eligible for the full amount of maternity allowance. The difficulty is that they have recently changed the way class 2 NICs is paid, it's now included as part of the self assessment, so if you haven't paid it for 13 weeks you need to phone them and pay early, although I got passed from jobcentre to hmrc with neither knowing the process of doing this, luckily it turned out I had paid just about 13 weeks anyway so I didn't have to look further. The best thing to do is to phone the maternity allowance department of the job centre and ask how many weeks of class 2 nics you have paid and if not enough then ask how to pay earlier than self assessment submission. Hope that makes sense, I spent a long time trying to find any info a few weeks ago!

What bigkicks said re nic contributions - you need to not have a small earnings exception cert and pay 13w nics, just phone HMRC and ask for a bill.

According to my MA certificate I can work 10 "keep in touch" days if I notify them.

Hello!

Being self employed, you would have paid both class 2 and 4 NIC.

You paid class 2 (£2.80 per week although your exempt if your profits are less than the annual allowance), either by DD or as one off payments twice per year and the class 4 (9% off your net profits over annual allowance) when you complete your annual tax return.

did your accountant send you a PDF copy of your last tax return and your accounts? Have a look on there and you'll be able to see

PS- if you're not a LTD company, get a certified bookkeeper rather than an accountant to do your accounts. They can prepare your final accounts for you and complete your tax return and would charge probably half the amount an accountant would charge (I charge £20ph for bookkeeping and (£150 for a tax return)

Ok, so in all likelihood I have paid nic 2s as I've been self employed for eight years or so. Will see if accountant has sent last tax return, could only find the accounts but am sure they are there. Feeling more positive now means I won't have to work right up until birth.

Will look into a book keeper as well. I'm paying £500 plus VAT for accountant.

Sorry to hijack the thread. Would a bookkeeper be able to do a capital gains tax calculation? Don't need one yet but will do soon and it's a little complicated do to letting rooms in the house etc for a period of time, house being fully let for a while then only half of it is going to be sold so i'd like someone to do the calculation for peace of mind.

I was se (sole trader) when pregnant. I paid class2 by dd monthly (11-13£ a month) and class4 with my tax return. I got MA for six months. I used my 10 KIT days to work one day a week the last ten weeks.
The MA people were uncommunicative but efficient and I had no stress about any of it.

How do the KIY days work?

I'm a maternity nurse so usually work 24/5 or 6 which is not doable with a baby. I also do consultancy for sleep and feeding alongside my 24 hour work. It would be good to keep up with the clients but not like they are 9-5 jobs as the consultancy is usually emails or phone calls.

What I'm planning to do is start maternity allowance at the end of my September booking, baby due beginning of November. Can I do that? Then in the new year look into getting a part time nanny job as employed and do consultancy alongside that. I don't have enough client base to do sole consultancy. And I don't want to make any firm decisions in case I find parenthood difficult.

I have no idea what 24/5 means - it can't be 24hrs a day for five days is it??
For KIT any work counts as a "day" so my Pilates instructor friend coukd only teach 10 classes which was barely worth the effort.
I arranged a client I nirmally did 0.5days/week into 1day/fortnight instead to get ten full day's pay.
If you want to do consultancy phone calls /emails you need to do them all in one day (I did a Sunday when dh was home for childcare).

From www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance/overview you can start payments 11weekd before EDD.

Lol, yes as a maternity nurse I work 24 hours a day five or six days a week. I help parents with their new borns, support them with feeding them and setting up a routine.

Might look further into consultancy but can't see it working as parents usually want daily emails or phone calls for support. I expect I could run baby massage classes however would be tricky with small baby.

Thanks for all the help everyone. It's made so much more sense than any government website.

When do you sleep?!

When the baby does:-) (hollow laugh, think I had about four hours broken last night) and lots of catch up on days off. Have been doing maternity nursing for ten years my sleep patterns are pretty random but I guess good practice for my own little one in November.

If the bookkeeper is qualified to complete tax returns then yes! Look on bookkeepers.org.uk! Or once you know your figures inbox me and I'll take a quick look (always good to keep refreshing my memory whilst not actively working!)

Thanks Letme, it probably won't be for a while, maybe even next year but I'm just a bit worried about doing the calculation myself and reluctant to pay an accountant as they charge so much. I'm pretty good with numbers but there are so many rules with my circumstances I just want to be sure. I usually do my own tax return but the thought of this capital gains calc is filling me with fear!