Can someone clever please help me with SMP/tax

[itallhappensforareason]

I got my letter from my employer over the weekend confirming my SMP arrangements; I know the payments are subject to tax/NI but I have no idea how much this will be. Could someone intelligent shed some light please?!

My annual salary is £31,050 which came into effect in May. My first day of maternity leave will be 28th August 2018.

If it helps I have also included information below from my last 3 payslips. I presume I will pay maximum tax as I would have already earned over the £11,850 threshold by the time I go on maternity leave (presuming this is based on gross payment and not net)?

April:
Gross - £2,380
NI - £201.36
Tax - £278.20
Pension - £15.02

May:
Gross - £2,696.19
NI - £239.30
Tax - £341.60
Pension - £52.64

June:
Gross - £2,587.50
NI - £226.26
Tax - £319.80
Pension - £50.03

And this is my payment schedule issued by my employer:

31st August 2018 - £301.22
30th September 2018 - £2,259.18
31st October 2018 - £1,079.47
30th November 2018 - £622.20
31st December 2018 - £642.94
31st January 2019 - £642,94
28th February 2019 - £580.72
31st March 2019 - £642.94
30th April 2019 - £622.20
31st May - £559.98

Thanks in advance.

Try www.gov.uk/maternity-paternity-calculator

Hopefully this will be able to give you more information.

Thanks @myother but I tried that earlier, it doesn't go into detail about tax deductions just the gross payments.

You'll be best speaking to your payroll/HR department then. Sorry the link was no good! X

Maybe add all your income together in this tax year and put it in a "take home pay" calculator?

Yours is fairly similar to mine as I'm on 29.5k and had 6 weeks at 90% then onto statutory, let me dig my payslips out and I will let you know my gross and net hang on.....

Personal tax allowamce is £11850 for 2018-19, which means that you only pay tax on months that you earn over £987.50 (£11850/12). So from your November payday onwards you won't be paying tax.
NI is only paid on weeks that you eaen £162 or more, and SMP is less than this at about £145. So you'll also pay no NI from Nov onwards.
If you get to the March 2019 payday and you've earnt less than £11850 over the previous 12 months then you'll be entitled to a tax refund, because you would have paid too much tax in the first few months - this will either be addes back into your payslips in the last few months of maternity, or you may get a 1 off refund but that might not be until the September

In your Aug 2018 payday you will get more than the £301 noted on your pay schedule as you'll be getting full pay for the days before your maternity pay kicks in
HTH

Infact not sure if it will help as I started KIT days on my 3rd month of mat leave so it's skewed the numbers a bit but you can see from March and April when I was on stat I hardly payed any

Jan (went on leave from Jan 4th
Gross £2,059
Net £1,668

Feb
Gross £1,691
Net £1,423

March
Gross £704
Net £752
(Had a tax rebate on my payslip)

April
Gross £917
Net £890

May
Gross £1,692
Net £1,416

To clarify, NI is paid on weeks that you earn over £162

do you work overtime each month? is there a reason your monthly salary fluctuates?

will you still contribute to the pension or are you putting it on hold while on mat leave?

Your tax code will be cumulative, and will adjust as you go through the year. It is likely/usual that you will receive a tax rebate in your pay during the year, as the cumulative tax code will take effect.

You haven't told us your July pay, but assuming that (a) you receive the same for July as you did for June and (b) you don't receive any other income or benefits in kind, your total position for 2018/19 will be:

Total pay: £17,022.80
Less free personal allowance: £11,850
Taxable pay = £5,172.80
Tax at 20% = £1,034.56

Assuming you pay tax in July along the lines of what you paid in June, you have already paid more tax than the total liability for the year, hence you will be getting a rebate once the pay reduction kicks in.

(NI works on a monthly/weekly basis rather than on a cumulative basis, therefore you simply won't pay it in months when you are below the threshold.)

Thank you all, you've been brilliant help! 👍