Keep in touch days and maternity allowance for the self-employed..

[hattyyellow]

Does anyone know the details of this?

I've been on maternity allowance since I had DD3 in November. I've now been offered a contract which would be 10 days work between July and September on a freelance basis.

Do I need to tell the DWP? My accountant? Does Keep in Touch mean just with your workplace as an employee or can a freelancer claim it as well for a new client/piece of work ie keeping in touch with your field of work?

Any advice gratefully recieved..I have 3 kids under 4 at home at the moment and making any phone calls/extensive web research into this is proving tricky!

I was the same as you. How it worked for me was when I told the Maternity Allowance benefits office the date that I was going back, they then added on another 10 days allowance to cover the days I had done on leave. They didn't ask any questions about earnings etc which I was surprised at. I'm not sure the people in the tax office really knew what to do TBH.

You need to tell the DWP (via the Jobcentre Plus you sent the MA claim form to), but as long as it is no more than 10 days it should not affect your MA.

You don't need to tell your accountant specifically, but you do of course need to include the self-employed income for the 10 days in your total income for the year.

Thank you both so much, that's really helpful. Great to be able to get some income on top of the paltry maternity allowance!