URGENT DRO Advice please

alltaken

My Partner has submitted her DRO application to the intermediary and we have just discovered she has received an 'Alabaster' payment along with the usual statutory maternity leave pay for October.

The Alabaster payment is an extra £66.42 on top the ordinary pay. At the budget that the intermediary did there was £0.24p surplus.

What does this mean for the DRO application? Is it doomed to fail because of this damn alabaster payment?

fatbelly

Sorry, only just noticed this...

I don't know what an alabaster payment is but if it's not something that she will receive each month then it doesn't affect the declaration.

If it is a regular payment then she has £66+ surplus per month and you need to check whether the Intermediary has submitted this already, as she is outside the criteria for a DRO, probably...

HappyMJ

alltaken wrote: »

My Partner has submitted her DRO application to the intermediary and we have just discovered she has received an 'Alabaster' payment along with the usual statutory maternity leave pay for October.

The Alabaster payment is an extra £66.42 on top the ordinary pay. At the budget that the intermediary did there was £0.24p surplus.

What does this mean for the DRO application? Is it doomed to fail because of this damn alabaster payment?

Alabaster payment is a one off payment of back pay. It won't be used in the calculation. Don't worry about it.

fermi

A message I've been asked to post by someone who spotted this thread.

Alabaster case, which made the news about 10 years ago: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/employers/alabaster.htm.

If the poster has received an "alabaster payout" my guess is that it only affects the income rated first 6 weeks of SMP, not the remaining SMP which is flat rated unless the worked is very poorly paid (see https://www.gov.uk/employers-maternity-pay-leave/entitlement).

On that basis the DRO OR is HIGHLY unlikely to consider a revocation, as its just a bit of extra money for a few weeks.

They need to either call the DRO unit or talk to the authorised intermediary who set the DRO up. But its almost certainly going to be OK

fatbelly

Thanks to whoever provided the info - hope it works out for the OP

alltaken

Thank you all. The application is in a backlog at present and as such is awaiting submission to the IS. Am I right in saying that the consensus is a DRO would still be granted as it's a one off payment?

fatbelly

Yes, the worst case is that it's a bit extra that sits in an account and is classed as an asset (limit is £1000).

It will not affect your income for the inc/exp calculation.

And you haven't submitted the application yet anyway.