Voluntary Redundancy and SMP (entitlement)

carolissosmiley_2

Hi,

Looking for some advice please.

Our company is having 90 days consultaton for redundancy and have asked for people to accept voluntary redundancy.

Myself and my colleague are both pregnant and at this moment have opted to take voluntary redundancy due to the fact that part time postions cannot be guaranteed on our return to work (this is another story entirely!!)

Basically we have been told that when we leave we will get our redundancy package, month in lieu and our SMP but this will be paid in a lump sum instead of monthly.

Now the problem is the SMP is taxable and as we are leaving in Feb 2010 this being paid in a lump sum and in this current tax year so where you normally would be entitled to claim tax back, we wouldn't be able to as the SMP would be calculated with the rest of our earnings from 2009.

My question is are we entitled to ask the company to pay our SMP monthly instead of in a lump sump

or

Can we ask that the SMP lump sum is not paid until April, once the new tax year starts and once our babies have actually been born as we are both due in April.

I can't understand why we would get our SMP when our babies have not even been born yet?

Any advice you can give or if you have a similar experience then this would be great.

Thanks

jazzyman01

I would talk to ACAS - in the past we have always paid SMP out monthly even when there was a redundancy situation.

carolissosmiley_2

Thanks for that, Spoke to ACAS, tax office and some other helpline today who all didn't know 100% for sure, Looks like it's a bit of a unusual situation.

One helpline agreed with you though and said it should be monthly, apparently the tax office don't like it being paid out in a lumo sum.

Thanks again

SUPERJULES

I ended up talking voluntary redundancy last Nov so got my smp in a lump sum, and it should have ran until May so was out of pocket with tax and national insurance but in my case it wasn't too much and the redundancy pay more than made up for it.

Good thing is I didn't want to go back to work as it was my 3rd so I want to be at home more now while they are young but I missed the independance of working, anyway as I complete tax returns for a living my work is quite seasonal and they have asked me to work Nov to end Jan which suits me fine as I got my redundancy pay I work 2 days a week what ever hours I want and it's only for 3 months, I get nearly 2 weeks off at christmas plus I have money to buy presents.