Financial help when on maternity leave?

[samantha_sarah]

Both me and oh work full time at the moment but when i go on maternity leave (5 weeks time) my oh's 15000 salary will be all we have to live off as well as the crap maternity pay.

Is there any financial help out there for us?

Iv heard that once your on maternity leave you can claim some things??

I have no idea!

Can anyone shed some light? xxxx

 

[mama2b]

I *THINK* you may be entitled to working tax credits, give them a call and they will go through it on phone and send you claim form.

Hopefully you will get more joy than me, I have been waiting since DECEMBER to get something off them, even an update would be nice !

Also you would probably entitled to claim council tax benefit.

I have applied for council tax & housing benefit but again still waiting !!

 

[sonny]

If you do apply for any type of tax credits............you DO NOT have to inform them of the first 100 pounds a week of SMP when doing calculations.

 

[Amanda]

You'll definitely get tax credits once the baby is born, but I don't think you'll get anything before then, sorry. We're similar financially, but already have 2 kids, so get tax credits now. I wouldn't be able to meet the bills if we didn't get them as well.

This is a good site:

https://www.entitledto.co.uk/

 

[avistar]

Just curious but are the tax credits given throughout the year after the child is born in the UK?? We get no tax credits in the US right after a child is born. However, I am unsure about those who are on welfare or some sort of gov assistance. But for those who can keep up/pay their bills, we get to claim children during tax season for the previous year...(My dd was born Jan 2nd 09 so we didn't get to claim her!). Is this the same thing??

I also work for the government and got NO paid maternity leave what so ever! Be thankful for whatever you can get

 

[Amanda]

We can claim from the day the baby is born. That does seem very harsh how they do with where you are avistar!

Our tax credits are normally based on what you earnt in the previous finanial year (ours runs 5th April-5th April), unless there has been a significant change, then they will base it on an estimate of the current year.

 

[avistar]

That is pretty nice Amanda. Like Samantha mentioned, they will be living only on her HD salary...so what is the financial cut off for the credit? Here our maternity leave is average 12 weeks (whether it is paid or not depends on where you work). We have other leave you are entitled to legally which is 6 weeks no matter when you started a job and after a year you get 12 weeks but all this is unpaid. But in the UK do women get 6 months to a year with some pay?? That is great. But all in all UK pays more tax huh?