Maternity pay when a director

[SophManchester]

Hi,
I tried to claim maternity allowance (as I did with my first child in 2014) but this time I’ve been told that as I’m down as a director I’m not entitled to it and would need to pay myself SMP,which I can’t afford to do, I’m the only person Employed in the company so no one to continue to bring money in while I’m off.Not sure where to go from here,am I entitled to anything or is that it? I was down as the director in 2014 when I claimed for my first child so I’m not sure why it’s different now. Can anyone help?

As far as I know, you pay it via your own company payroll and then reclaim it from HMRC:-

www.gov.uk/recover-statutory-payments

That assumes you've been paying yourself above the relevant NIC threshold for the required time period.

Perhaps ask your accountant?

Thanks very much for your reply,I have tried to find out myself online but it’s about as clear as mud so think I’ll have to get my accountant involved.
Thanks

You must be paying yourself a salary ? If so then you change your pay to SMP instead and it's reclaimed via your PAYE payment. If you don't pay enough in PAYE to reclaim in full then you can apply to receive all the SMP as a lump sum up front. You do need to have earned more than £113 per week every week for 8 weeks prior to the 15th week before your expected birth date to be able to pay SMP. If you don't earn this then it's irrelevant you're a director and the state pay you - but then if you don't even earn this much why are you even working for yourself ? But that's not relevant to this thread 😂

I think you can claim an advanced payment from the HMRC to cover this if you are the only employee.

Pay for Directors can be tricky - are you paid to be a director or paid to do the work. Are you paid as an office-holder or employee?
Dig out your contract of employment (if you have one) and speak to the accountant.

I had a maternity pay as director but 4 years ago. I was the only employee of my company. My accountant sat it up for me. She calculated my amounts and communicated with smp. Smp then sent me a lumpsum check that was deposited into my company's account. These money were used to make my monthly payments. Ask your account for advise or speak to smp directly.