Self employed income support scheme - maternity allowance

[applestrudels]

I can't find information about this anywhere so just wondering if anyone knows, or is in the same boat!

I meet all the criteria to be eligible for the self employed coronavirus income support scheme (and I need it, as my work has completely dried up!!) BUT I am due to start receiving Maternity Allowance in the second week of April.

Does anyone know if being on maternity allowance will make me ineligible for the income support scheme, and if so, can I simply cancel my maternity allowance before it starts...?

I don’t know the ins and outs but have you asked your accountant? I could maybe ask my husband for you but best to ask own accountant first. I suspect that it doesn’t mean you are ineligible for the government assistance ( as I don’t believe there is a clause in there about that) but that you couldn’t receive both.

Has anyone found an answer for this? My wife is a self employed hairdresser currently on maternity allowance. She would have been going back to work but, in the current circumstances, can’t. Should she cancel her maternity allowance now and hope to get the self employed 80%?

I haven’t got an answer yet but I emailed Maternity Action and they said they’ve had a few people asking the same thing so they are trying to find out, and I also rang Citizens Advice Bureau and they didn’t know either, but said they would try and find out and get back to me! I’ve also emailed my MP and asked my mum to email hers too... so fingers crossed one of them will be able to find out. If I find out I’ll let you know!

Unfortunately I don’t have an accountant, I usually just do all my own accounts as my business is usually very simple (apart from this one matter!)

Thanks for the response. Keep me posted. I have messages out to Money Advice Service and Maternity Action. I’ll update if I get any official feedback.

We might have had a breakthrough on this. I’ve had 2 accountants and various different bodies looking in to it and this is the first definitive response we’ve had from Maternity Action:

We've just heard that receiving Maternity Allowance (MA) during the current period will not disqualify you from help under the Self-employed Income Support Scheme. HMRC are going to update the guidance shortly but have confirmed the following:

· Claiming MA does not stop a claimant from being eligible to the SEISS scheme. The person has to meet the various eligibility criteria, but claiming MA is not evidence that any of those eligibility criteria has not been met.
· One of the conditions is that a person is continuing to trade and intends to continue to trade in the future. A break in trading activity for maternity does not mean that the trade has ceased as long as the person intends to resume trading after their break.
· Another condition is that the trader has lost trading profits because of the coronavirus outbreak. An individual will be accepted as having met that test as long as someone on maternity would have lost trading profits but for the fact that they are on maternity.

Hello
Did anyone find a definite answer to this question? I've been on maternity leave and claiming MA since septembre and wondering if I can still claim the third grant.

@Lilice I'm in exactly the same situation and was wondering the same - from doing some googling it does look like you can claim Maternity Allowance and SEISS at the same time providing you met all the other eligibility criteria

Eg in this article here

And actually having looked at the govt page for the latest SEISS grant it now specifically says "If you claim Maternity Allowance this will not affect your eligibility for the grant." Hooray!

@Nowisthemonthofmaying that's right! I did the webseminar and asked them directly the question. Such great news, yay!