Maternity - Confused re: additional benefits

jc6280

Hi all,

I've found this website which seems to be quite useful....
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/financial_capability/pgtm/parents/index.html

Hope this helps you all!
:j

atlantis187

You will not get the sure start maternity grant as me and my wife applied for this last year when she was on maternity leave and got refused my income for the year is £17000 and my wife is £19000

marywooyeah

the sure start maternity grant is awarded if you recieve child tax credit at a higher amount than the family element and if your child is under 3 months old.

when you first get CTC you get a higher rate than the family element because you have a new baby, this is called "the baby element".

as long as you apply before your baby is 3 months old, not 12 weeks old, you should recieve it. i only found out about this when my son was 11 weeks old so i rushed in the application and was awarded the £500. me and my partners combined income last year was over £20000 so i dont see any reason why you shouldnt get it.

you can nip into a job centre and get the form, although you do have to get your midwife or health visitor to sign it so make an appointment with them in advance, hope this helps!

Becles

The family element and the baby element are two different things as regarding tax credits.

The baby element is paid to all claimants for the first year of baby's life.

The family element depends on your personal household situation and household income. If you are just getting the basic £10 a week, you don't qualify, but anything more than £10 a week and you will qualify.

Floxxie

If you are receiving SMP then you can do unlimited self-employment work e.g. mystery shopping, for example, wihtout it impacting on your SMP pay.

Floxxie

Saver_Raver

Please please can someone help I've spent the last 3 hours trying to figure all this out and I'm getting more confused????


I want to tell the child tax credit people my estimate for this years (08 -09) income. This is because I'm pretty sure I will be entitled to the sure start maternity grant. When I completed the initial forms for child tax credit I gave 07 - 08 figures as it suggested on the form but only getting SMP now my income will drastically reduce.

My questions are:

For working out this years income......I started SMP 28th July...do I just add up all my current payslips and the SMP months until April next year?

I've read here somewhere about deducting the first £100 of SMP because you don't include this....is this correct?

When adding up my income....is it gross or net pay the child tax credit people need to know?

I would really appreciate any help you could give me. My little one is over 10 weeks old now so I haven't got long to get my child tax credit changed and apply for the maternity grant.

Thanks in advance :-)

cw18

can't help with the SMP (though I've read the same). I'd calculate both ways, and ask them when I phoned.

as far as salary goes, it's TAXABLE pay they want (which includes the amount you won't actually pay tax on due to your personal allowance). This would normally be the same as GROSS, but if you pay into a company pension scheme (and AVC scheme if appropriate) and/or give money to charity through payroll, then you deduct these from the GROSS to get the TAXABLE amount.

cw18

Just found the booklet that came with my renewal pack.

It says

"deduct £100 from your income for each week you received Statutory Maternity Pay or, if relevant, Statutory Paternity Pay or Statutory Adoption Pay"

It goes on to say that MA isn't taxable, so if you got that instead of SMP you don't include it at all.

Saver_Raver

Thanks....I rang today and amended my estimated earnings for this year and completed my sure start application. I'm not getting my hopes up but if I did get it I'd be able to buy a couple of items I am in desparate need of for the baby :-)

angelfairy

gosh, this is all confusing and i need to understand it.

my first baby is due in the middle of March 2009 and i was wanting to calculate in advance what money we would have coming into the house with me on SMP from the end of Feb.

OH hasn't been in his job for a full year and his salary varies monthly depending on his hours.

not sure where to start really.

the link for the FSA - that looks like an online version of what i was given by my midwife so i might have a closer look at that.