Maternity Allowance?

[Maternitynamechange]

Hello. Just looking into maternity allowance. I’ve been self-employed over 3 years and I can also evidence 13 different large payments across non-consecutive weeks in the 66 weeks before due date. Will this all be enough? I do get paid sporadically and all in different amounts so I can’t say that I’m paid a certain amount each week, if that makes sense but I do earn about £20k gross and can show that with 21/22 tax return. Will I have enough to get it? (Aiming for the £156.66 per week as that’s lower than 90% of my wage if averaged out across the weeks). The class 2 NI contributions is the bit that’s got me most confused tbh. I’ve been paying NI as standard with each tax return. Thanks if you got this far!

As long as you earned more than £30 a week on average over your qualifying weeks, you’ll get it!

But then you only get a proportionate amount not the full amount. You'll need to evidence exactly what you were earning in those qualifying weeks to get the full amount of MA.

I would contact Maternity Action, they'll be able to advise you

Hi so, as far as I can tell (I've researched because I am also self employed but not yet claimed as not due til Oct) that actually if you are self employed all you actually need to do is to have paid your NI2 contributions for 13 weeks. If you've already done that as part of last year's self assessment then you're already set, and will be entitled to the full amount for 39 weeks. If you haven't yet, you can either do this years Self Assessment early (anytime from 6th April) and pay your NI2 or phone and ask to make voluntary early payments of NI2 for 13 weeks, because you are pregnant. I'm not sure exactly who you phone - one of the HMRC numbers. Although I gather that once you tick self employed on the job centre MA application form, they automatically check your NI record and if you haven't paid enough they put you on touch for how to do it. It's actually simpler being self employed than employed for MA as you have to prove your employment earnings, but for self employment they use NI2 contributions as a proxy for having earned enough (and you are allowed to make up the contributions if you haven't actually earned enough anyway, so long as you've genuinely been self employed and earned 30/week on average).

Mine is a bit more complicated as I am actually PT employed by two employers (sporadically and low wages) but get most my income from self employment but only started trading last April so haven't yet done a self assessment!

Good luck!

I claimed MA at the end of 2020. I had been self employed since summer 2019. I made loss in my first year.

I applied, they sent me a request for NI top up (about £35) and then I received my first payment the week my baby was born. Very simple process.

I should say I didn't have to 'prove' anything and I received the full amount

Brilliant, thank you so much all. I don’t know that I’ve ever paid voluntary NI, only what was part of my calculation but hopefully all will be okay. I’m going to do my TR asap anyway as applying for a mortgage so hopefully that will help!

@Carebear99 So if I can evidence those 13 payments in different weeks in that 66 week period, I’ll get full? (Given that all the payments are around £1000 or more?) I don’t get pay slips as such but I think I’ve got remittance evidence for all of them.

@Maternitynamechange you won't need to send evidence of anything hun just pay whatever NI they tell you to

@Aubyone Ah I get it. So I don’t need to pay voluntary NI as long as I file my tax return prior to applying? I’m due the same time as you. Thank you.

Brilliant thank you @dontblamemee

I've done it a couple of times. Second time, they said I hadn't paid enough NI - then sent a letter saying I needed to pay something like £18 in order to qualify. All pretty simple to do (form filling sends me into a blind panic, but even I managed it).

I should add that I received it in 2019 and Ididn't have to 'prove' anything. I did get the initial letter offering me £27 per week and to top up my NI, which I did promptly and received the full amount. Was fairly painless as a PP said.