What am I entitled to & when do I need to claim?

janegresty

I am currently 6 months pregnant and due to start my maternity leave on 2nd of June. I work full time now 37.5 hours a week on minimum wage. Once I go on maternity leave I will get 6 weeks on 90% of my wage and then up to £112 a week for the remainder of the time (I get 9 months off for maternity in total).
My husband works full time also doing around 40 hours a week. He will be carrying on working full time one baby is here.

My question is... am I entitled to claim anything? As people keep telling me so many different things that I am getting rather confused. I have been told I need to claim Tax Working Credits, as everyone who was working is entitled to that. I have also been told that anyone who has a baby is entitled to Child Benefit (think thats what its called?).

I also thought that the Maternity Grant was only for people recieving benefits, but have now been told that is also for everyone.

So I am rather confused! Obviously whilst I am on maternity every little helps towards the bills, so would be nice to know what I am actually entitled to if anything.

I would be very grateful to any help and advice you can give me, thanks.

msmicawber

Have a look here as it should answer your questions:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/index.htm

You'll be given a form to apply for child benefit when your child is born (I think I was given it by one of the midwives, but it's been a few years and my memory's hazy).

mitchaa

janegresty wrote: »

I am currently 6 months pregnant and due to start my maternity leave on 2nd of June. I work full time now 37.5 hours a week on minimum wage. Once I go on maternity leave I will get 6 weeks on 90% of my wage and then up to £112 a week for the remainder of the time (I get 9 months off for maternity in total).
My husband works full time also doing around 40 hours a week. He will be carrying on working full time one baby is here.

My question is... am I entitled to claim anything? As people keep telling me so many different things that I am getting rather confused. I have been told I need to claim Tax Working Credits, as everyone who was working is entitled to that. I have also been told that anyone who has a baby is entitled to Child Benefit (think thats what its called?).

I also thought that the Maternity Grant was only for people recieving benefits, but have now been told that is also for everyone.

So I am rather confused! Obviously whilst I am on maternity every little helps towards the bills, so would be nice to know what I am actually entitled to if anything.

I would be very grateful to any help and advice you can give me, thanks.

Everyone who is working is not entitled to working tax credits. I dont, my wife doesn't, and as far as i'm aware none of my family do either, so it is definitely not ''everyones entitlement''

Working tax credits are for low income families.

Its hard to give you any advice without you and your husbands salaries. This will dictate whether you will get working tax credits (WTC) or child tax credits (CTC) or both

You will definitely get the £18.80pw child benefit (Used to be called family allowance) Everyone, even premiership footballers who earn millions are entitled to this if they have a baby.

Need more details to help you with your question

LilacPixie

janegresty wrote: »

I am currently 6 months pregnant and due to start my maternity leave on 2nd of June. I work full time now 37.5 hours a week on minimum wage. Once I go on maternity leave I will get 6 weeks on 90% of my wage and then up to £112 a week for the remainder of the time (I get 9 months off for maternity in total).
My husband works full time also doing around 40 hours a week. He will be carrying on working full time one baby is here.

My question is... am I entitled to claim anything? As people keep telling me so many different things that I am getting rather confused. I have been told I need to claim Tax Working Credits, as everyone who was working is entitled to that. I have also been told that anyone who has a baby is entitled to Child Benefit (think thats what its called?).

I also thought that the Maternity Grant was only for people recieving benefits, but have now been told that is also for everyone.

So I am rather confused! Obviously whilst I am on maternity every little helps towards the bills, so would be nice to know what I am actually entitled to if anything.

I would be very grateful to any help and advice you can give me, thanks.

You will get child benefit. My daughter was born in 2006 and we had to apply online for it once we had registered the birth. I'm in scotland so it may be diffrent where you are but the midwife didn't give us the form.

If your yearly household income is less than 56k then you will be able to claim some child tax credits, the amount will vary on your income tho.

The sure start grant is only availible to lower income families and is dependent on who much child tax credits you get. We didn't get it when daughter arrived as we has a joint income of 27k.

janegresty

This is where I am getting confused. It will be a struggle just on my husbands wage and my maternity pay. But it was our choice to have a baby. It didn't even occur to me to apply for any type of help at all. But people now keep mentioning all these things I need to apply for in what time limits and its all quite confusing.
My husband comes out with roughly £900 after tax... his deductions are roughly £220 he gets paid every 4 weeks.
I get paid £740 monthly deductions are around £100.

Also what happens if I do not return to work once maternity runs out? I was hoping to return to a different job, doing part time work to cover the bills. But now I'm worrying what will happen if I do not manage to find a job at the exact time maternity runs out?

MissShal

Hi, I don't think you can claim anything until your baby is born. When our daughter was born we put in the claims for Child Benefit and Child/Working Tax Credit. Then when we had our CTC details we were able to claim the Sure Start grant (CTC is one of the qualifying benefits, but I think only if you are getting more than the "Family Element"). If you're both working full time then you definitely won't get the grant until you've applied for CTC when baby is born. I think there is a time limit of 3 months, but don't hold me to that!

As for your maternity leave running out, well mine ran out mid March and I haven't found another job yet, so we're just living off my partners wages and CTC at the moment. We're actually managing much better than I thought we would, but that all depends on which outgoings you have, we just have the basics plus my contract phone and £30 repayments on a sofa so it's manageable.

By the way, congratulations!!

mitchaa

Working that out your husband is paid a yearly salary of £14500 and you get paid £10500 giving you a combined income of £25,000

You will definitely get a higher rate CTC, but you will not receive WTC.

Because you will be eligible for higher rate CTC, you will be eligible for the £500 maternity grant.

As to your other question, you would receive no help at all if you chose to be a full time stay at home mum (not sure if you would qualify for JSA)

However you would see increases in your CTC and your husband may possibly qualify for WTC on an income of £14500.

Put your details into here to find out for sure what you'll be entitled to..

http://www.taxcredits.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/Qualify/DIQHousehold.aspx

Use the £14500 and £10500 as your incomes as this what your take homes relate to

janegresty

Thanks I filled it in online and there was no option to state I am pregnant. And also tried to put we had 1 child as will in the future, but then wouldn't allow me to put in dob as was in the future. So at present we are not entitled. So no idea if entitled once babys here lol

mitchaa

janegresty wrote: »

Thanks I filled it in online and there was no option to state I am pregnant. And also tried to put we had 1 child as will in the future, but then wouldn't allow me to put in dob as was in the future. So at present we are not entitled. So no idea if entitled once babys here lol

Just say you had your baby yesterday:)

Will give you an indication of how much you will receive.

Get the figure and divide it by 50 to find out how much your weekly entitlement will be (50, as we are already 2 weeks into the new tax year)

I filled it in for you and it says entitlement is £1062 so divide by 50 = Around £21pw child tax credits. (You also get the £18.80pw child benefit which is not included in this calculator)

You can also play with the calculator to put in the details of the income you will be on when you have the baby and are off on maternity leave, so your husbands £14500 will be the same but yours will drop quite a bit.

There's a rule you can use where you dont need to count the 1st £100pw of your SMP for the calculations. So whilst you receive the £112.50pw SMP, only calculate your earnings as £12.50pw

So instead of 26wks SMP pay of £112.50 = £2925, it would only equal £325 (£2925-2600)

You would then add this £325 onto what other earnings you have had this year, ie 90% pay at 6wks etc, So your income may well drop from £10500 a year to £2-3000

The more it drops, the more CTC you will receive

DaisyFlower

£21pw is standard tax credits inc the baby element so you wont qualify for the sure start grant as you have to claim more than the family/baby element - its only there for people on low wages or benefits.

nearlyamum

Hi and congrats!

Have a look at this site:

CLICK

HTH