Maternity allowance KIT days

[ClaraSolis]

Hi, I am self-employed and gave birth a month early to my son in May. As I am self-employed, I receive Maternity Allowance.

Since giving birth, I have had to do some work for clients to maintain my business. However, I have not yet reported this work. I know you're allowed 10 Keep in Touch days. How do I report these, and do I need some sort of proof?
I simply work from home so not sure what proof I can provide.

Also, if I decide to start working 1 or 2 days per week, will I lose my MA? Or will it be adjusted (for example, I don't get anything for those 2 days per week)?

You’ll lose mat allowance for anything over 10 KIT days.

I rang (thinking I should) when I started my kit days (same situation as yourself) the lady told me to ring at the end of the ten days and let them know each day I had worked. I had made notes on what work I’d done and the amount I roughly thought I’d earned but when I rang after the tenth kit day they only wanted to know the days I’d work and none of the other information was needed.

Sorry forgot to add, your 1-2 days per week will each be classed as kit days so once you’ve hit ten days in total, whether you’ve done 1 hour per day or 8 hours per day your maternity allowance will stop.

Thank you for the replies!

I thought I had read somewhere that if you returned to work partially, you might still get part of your MA, but I guess that's incorrect. No idea where I read it!

I'm a bit unsure of what to do then, as the MA by itself is not enough to pay my bills. And if I don't do any work for my clients for a while, they will find someone else and I will lose all my business.
But I won't be able to return to work full-time either while looking after my baby, so I still won't earn enough either... 😣

Ah, decisions decisions...

Thank you for the help, I appreciate it!

Unfortunately, it’s one of the downsides of being self-employed. I just can’t understand the thinking behind the current system. I was in exactly the same situation as you, and it feels very unfair on self-employed women. It’s a choice between losing clients or going back to work when your baby is only a few weeks old, while employed friends get months of paid leave.

It was really hard. My little one has just turned one, and I managed as best I could by working in the evenings and during nap times until she was around 8 months old. After that, I put her in nursery for three mornings a week. At the time I felt a lot of guilt, but she loves it now and honestly, it saved my sanity.

MA is almost the same ££s as SMP. You can offset more expenses as a SE person thus paying less tax than an employed person earning a similar gross amount. And you got the same 9 months (ish) to financially plan the massive life change you chose.

What don’t you understand about the fact that your own life choices lead to different lifestyles than others?

Each situation is different, so I don’t think it’s fair to say MA is almost the same as SMP. I’m also not comparing the amount of MA to SMP — that’s not an issue for me. My main concern was not wanting to lose my clients, as I love the work I do, and I knew the challenge of finding time to get everything done would only be temporary. I didn’t feel the need to plan ahead as money isn’t an issue, it was the amount of leave I couldn’t have. Like you say, my choice, fair enough. Maybe I was naive about how much work I could do with a baby in tow initially.

That said, I can imagine it must be very difficult for anyone who is financially stretched and has to return to work after the ten KIT days because they lose their Maternity Allowance. It’s unlikely most people could earn at the same level they were before having a baby, at least in those first few months. Again, like you’ve said, maybe a solid plan would help.

I am, however, interested in learning more about which expenses I could offset as a self-employed person compared to someone employed, as paying less tax would definitely be a huge benefit.

Thank you for your replies MudandMoet, I really appreciate it.

I agree that the current system doesn't really work. Anyone on maternity leave doesn't have to worry about taking time off, as their job will still be there after their maternity leave. But if I take the full leave I'm allowed, I lose all the clients and business I spent the last 4 years working to build up.

And sadly, not everyone gets to save up a decent amount to make up for the loss of work. We've had to repair our roof, replace our boiler and our car, meaning that all our savings are gone.

I was self employed for two of my maternity leaves. With the first, I just had to go back to work earlier and with the second, DH was earning a lot more, so we just saved up.

@ClaraSolis that was definitely my biggest fear, losing my clients as I’d built up such a good rapport with them.

Sorry you have had unforeseen (big!) expenses. Do you think you could get by with working around your little one until you can think about nursery if that’s something you’d consider. Is there a minimum amount of work you could do just to keep the work ticking over and maybe spread the kit days out as long as possible? Like I said, you can use one kit day and do 1 hour or much more, there’s no work time limit on each day.

It’s a very long list.

smallbusiness.co.uk/self-employed-allowable-expenses-you-can-claim-2572279/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=2017813618&gbraid=0AAAAAD5L4j8-f7RQ_NQdqj_s2UWLGr0DD&gclid=CjwKCAjw2brFBhBOEiwAVJX5GP7XF38SmuW6NM9LCyJk7xgNtTMFue0UFS85VsL20bG2zeW7tBbgShoC0OgQAvD_BwE

I agree that the current system doesn't really work. Anyone on maternity leave doesn't have to worry about taking time off, as their job will still be there after their maternity leave. But if I take the full leave I'm allowed, I lose all the clients and business I spent the last 4 years working to build up.

Conversely, I charged double my salary when self-employed. Stability usually comes at a price.

And sadly, not everyone gets to save up a decent amount to make up for the loss of work. We've had to repair our roof, replace our boiler and our car, meaning that all our savings are gone.

Unless an asteroid struck, you opted to do some of the most expensive things you could do at the same time!

@AmIHumanOrAmIAYeti I already knew that much… this really doesn’t make much difference to my tax bill at all. What I can legally put through from the list you provided is a pittance. I thought you were going to suggest something major I may have been missing that might actually make a difference to my tax bill.

Have a look at universal credit. You may be entitled to some help.

An important thing about KIT days for the self-employed that can cause problems:

You may be used to classing 8 hours of work as "a day" and charge it to clients as "a day" even if you actually do the work spread over 4 days at 2 hours a day. But under the KIT days rules that would count as 4 days not 1.

Obviously your record keeping is up to you so you may be fine but it's important to understand this in case yoir records are checked.

It rather depends what you do, doesn’t it.

It may be worth looking at what you can pay yourself for a KIT day, and how much work you can cram into a KIT day.

One very long one a fortnight, paid well might be a solution.

Sorry I don’t have much info as am not self employed but my friend is freelance, went back to work a couple of days a week and her MA was adjusted to reflect this. She spoke with HMRC prior and they were really helpful she said. Definitely worth giving them a call!