Do you receive basic SMP? How much tax and NI do you pay on it?

[MamaG]

very little! If you have paid tax for a few months before going on SMP then you will probably received a tax refund(depends on income)

oh really? thats good!

I don't now - but did last year - can't remember exact figures - but was something daft like £3/4 (for tax and NI) IIRC

hang on - just found a payslip from last year (July) - got £451 SMP for that month - paid £1.50 Tax and £1.76 NI

is that all?! Good stuff.

yep so "took home" £447.74

Don't know if it's different if you're on a higher tax code

I';m not on a high tax code so should be ok

FYI, yur tax code tells you how much tax free money you can earn(bit more technical than that but that's basically it!) so if your tax code says 545L you can earn £5,455 tax free(always add a 5 to the number!) it's different with K codes and also there are other complications but if you are a bog standard wage earner than it's that simple

that's per year btw, working from 6 april one year to 5 april the following year.

Tax is cumulative so it's based on the entire year.

NI is different, ie not cumulative, so if you earn lots in one month and pay lots of NI it's tough if you later earn little or nothing.

There is an NI free amount, can't remember how much, but would cover most of the SMP amoutn as i's aound £100 a week, so you pay 11% on anything over the free amount, ie not much as smp isn't much more than £100 per week!