Complicated Question - Maximising Childcare Vouchers

Derby123

Apologies this is a complicated question and may be in the wrong place so feel free to move this if that is the case.

I currently claim childcare vouchers through my employer. My wife in her current job has just been taken over by a new company under TUPE which also offers Childcare vouchers (where as her old employer didn't).

My wife is 20 weeks pregnant and we have worked out that if we opt in to the childcare voucher scheme as her employer only pays statutory maternity pay then we will be £243 a month better off through her maternity leave as legally they are required to continue to pay the vouchers as a non-cash benefit even though there is no salary to sacrifice and as we are planning to keep our son in nursery we can use the vouchers towards this. (Hurray).

We have also worked out that the first six weeks of SMP is calculated on her pay between weeks 17-25 of pregnancy and that if we wait until week 26 to opt in we will get paid more in those first six weeks.

Now here comes the complex questions:

1. Is it the 90% element of SMP worked out on pay checks issued within those weeks or as she gets paid 26 days in arrears would we need to wait until week 26 +26 days to opt in without effecting the first six-week element?

2. Some schemes (ours included) allow you to back date vouchers to claim your maximum benefit within a tax year. If we waited until either Week 26 or Week 26+26 days depending on the answer to question 1, could we then backdate our vouchers until the start of the tax year as they had been deducted outside of the window for calculating SMP or in fact would the voucher deductions be treated as though they had been deducted during that Week 17-25 period and thus have an effect on the SMP calculation.

Unfortunately as the company in question has just taken on a large number of new people and sites under TUPE their HR department isn't proving very helpful and we're struggling to get hold of their policies (including whether vouchers are worked out on notional salary or not) so any help or suggestions anyone could provide would be appreciated.

Saffagal

You'd need to check if they would even allow your wife to join so late in her pregnancy as some employers don't because of then having to pay; just like if you reduce your voucher amount for the qualifying weeks some don't allow you to increase it again after.