Working Whilst on Maternity leave - Please help!

[jwiggles]

Hi all,

Right, I am just about to register myself as Self-Employed as I am undertaking a new career in Foot Health... Basically I will still work full time at my current job and do this evenings and weekends.

My questions are:

1. Can you be Employed and Self-employed at the same time?

2. Can I work Self employed whilst on Maternity leave from my full time job?

3. Can I claim for SMP from full time job and from Self employed job at the same time?

Any real advice with links to websites for help and advice too will be greatly received!

Thanks everyone

1. Yes
2. Ask your employer. Some will have a clause saying you can't do other work without permission from them.
3. No, you get SMP once.

You can be employed and self employed at the same time, but I don't think you can continue to do self employed work whilst on maternity leave.

You can't get SMP from being self employed, it would be Maternity Allowance. However if you had two employed jobs you could get SMP twice, so it may be possible to get SMP and MA.

I used to work as an employed lab technician and also as a self emlployed mystery shopper (very part time).

I got SMP from main employment and carried on working as a mystery shopper (still very part time). But this was in 2005!

I think from memory you have to have been working in your self employed job in the qualifying week (maybe 15 weeks prior to due date) in order for it to work though.

Have you tried phoning the self employment office at the HMRC? they've been very helpful to me in the past with similar odd queries