How do you know what you are entitled to?

[Jemma7]

Still have a long way to go yet but just wondered how (when the time comes) you go about finding out what benefits and taxes you are entitled to?

Any suggestions?

contast your local social secrity office.

Citizens Advice Bureau are really useful too.

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It's £100 per week now I believe..

If you work you will be entitled to 6 wks of SMP which is 90% of your pay. Then a further 18wks at £100 per week. That is the basic, but your employer might pay out more depending on length of time with the company.

You will also get a tax rebate back dated to the 1 April 2004. SO any tax you pay after 1 April 2004 before you go on Mat leave will be paid back to you.

Jems aren't you employed by your family? Can't you ask them?

Your family? You're a brave woman!

The 6 wks at 90% and 18 wks at £100 are the minimum requirements. You MUST get this. The agency I was working for claimed it back off the government, so don't worry about your family being out of pocket by having to pay you SMP.

Wondered with the new entitlements to a year unpaid leave, what happens if you get pregnant during this year. Would you qualify for another round of leave? Could imagine this happening to quite a few people who wanted to do a 2 year spacing.

have a look at this jems
\linkwww.maternityalliance.org.uk{}

i'm so clever (not)

I would have thought so mog. I know someone who had 14 months between hers and did the 40 weeks leave with both and only had to go back for 6 weeks in between.

Wondered though if companies legally had to do this as when you are on unpaid leave you lose certain contractual benefits so this might include having to work for them (even if only for one week) before you are pregnant again. The regs say you have to be with the employer 26 weeks before the 15th week of confinement i.e. one week before pregnancy starts!

But you'd expect any other length of service conditions to continue to apply despite maternity leave wouldn't you. Eg if you get an extra day's holiday after 5 years would your maternity leave be extracted from the calculation?

I have a feeling that the employers guide (special cases) book says that to get maternity pay again you do have to go back for at least one week. I' think that they still have to keep your job open though.

I'll check properly tomorrow when I'm at work.

M2T, you say:
"You will also get a tax rebate back dated to the 1 April 2004. SO any tax you pay after 1 April 2004 before you go on Mat leave will be paid back to you."

Is this also valid for the year 2003? I started my maternity leave in June 2003, does this mean I can do a tax rebate too for all the tax I have paid from april 2003?
cheers!

Happyspider - I got one automatically. I went on Mat leave in at the end of May 2001 so it wasn't a huge sum of money, but it was just there in my SMP one week!

I assume yes you can!

Happyspider, I am not a tax expert but will try to explain. You will be taxed on the basis of your likely annual income and if anything happpens part way through the tax year which affects your annual income you may have to pay more tax (eg if you get a big pay rise) or get a rebate (eg if your earnings are considerably less than estimated at the start of the tax year. You basically need to find out if the tax code for the year had taken into account that your earnings would be reduced because you would be going on maternity leave - if it wasn't, then you may be entitled to a tax rebate. HTH

thanks! I will speak to HR about this..
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