Employer says he shouldn't have paid me holiday pay whilst on maternity leave?

[BettyBoo246]

Hi I am on Mat leave at min till March and have been since July last year.
In December just gone my employer paid me all my holiday entitlement that was left. He is now saying that he shouldn't have done that, I asked why and he said due to tac reasons??
Does anyone know If this is right?

#tax not tac

I thought you had to get your holiday entitlement back rather than be paid for it but I could be wrong (been a while) I will go check.

Or use it up after ml ends so you return on paper first. You are definitely entitled to accrue it while on ml.

He shouldn't have paid you holiday while you are on maternity leave, no. You are entitled to accrue holiday throughout maternity leave just the same as though you were at work, but unless you leave your job entirely, your holiday must be taken, not paid out.

Really! Yh I know I legally still accrued hol pay whilst on maternity, I spoke to ACAS before I went on leave and asked about holiday and they said your employer either has to let you have the time off, pay you for it or let you carry it over.
Will it affect my p60 then?

ACAS are not reliable. Holiday is paid time off work, it's not pay.

Your P60 reflects what you get paid, so from that point of view, yes. Your employer needs to sort this out though, you can't get paid and receive SMP at the same time unless it's for up to 10 Keeping In Touch days.

Holidays can be paid or given as time off. It is up to the company rules.

No it isn't.

flowery what he has basically said is he won't say anything and it never happened as far as he's concerned but as I say what worries me is the p60 and it may look like it was being paid on top of getting mat pay which is illegal! 2bh I did say this to him before I left and I asked for the remaining holiday pay to be paid in my last months salary before I left but he thought he knew better!

Sorry meant looked like #i was getting paid on top of maternity pay#

Flowery yes it is. I work in Payroll and my HR fucked up with my holiday accrual while I was on mat leave. It was paid to me after my return.

How on earth does your employer doing that mean that holiday can be taken or paid and it's up to any individual company's rules?

One company doing something doesn't automatically mean it's perfectly legal and everyone can do that.

If a Company does something unlawful regarding holiday pay and gets away with it, like flowery says, that doesn't make it legal.

An employer can only pay an employee for the statutory minimum holiday entitlement, instead of permitting them to actually take it, after the employment terminates.
This exception is allowed by s.14 of the Working Time regulations 1998.
www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/regulation/14/made

An employer can only lawfully make it's own rules about any additional contractual holiday entitlement they give over and above the statutory minimum.