What are the rules around maternity pay for spouses who receive an income/dividends through a limited company? I do not want to ask my accountant at this stage for obvious reasons...
My wife currently receives a salary and 50% dividends via my limited company - she maintains FreeAgent and does the other small administrative tasks. I have longish hours (12 - 14 hours a day out the house), so rely on this to keep my weekends free, and to minimise childcare costs for our two year old daughter. I am in a contract until end of May, currently outside IR35 status, but awaiting a determination from the client under new legislation.
My wife has just accepted a job (24 hours per week, nights) at a local care home - she has worked in healthcare industry previously. We decided this as a precautionary move in case current client decided to terminate contract and I was tempted by a permanent role. She won't be able to start this job until after Christmas due to the required DBS checks.
Assuming wife was around 4 weeks pregnant...
a). If she rejected the care job and stayed working for my company, if outside IR35 status persisted, would she be entitled to maternity pay? Could my company reclaim this from HMRC?
b). If she took the care job, does the 26 weeks working requirement include time working for my company, or does the clock reset with the start date for new job?
Sorry for garbled post - heads in a mess at the moment. I'm over the moon, but I don't want to stitch ourselves up financially... - a "go perm or leave" response from my client; no maternity pay and no opportunity to work for 18+ months would be far from ideal, and as I am really enjoying working for current client (especially after last client was an utter disaster), a perm offer would be tempting, but realistically we'd need some form of secondary income to make this viable.
My wife currently receives a salary and 50% dividends via my limited company - she maintains FreeAgent and does the other small administrative tasks. I have longish hours (12 - 14 hours a day out the house), so rely on this to keep my weekends free, and to minimise childcare costs for our two year old daughter. I am in a contract until end of May, currently outside IR35 status, but awaiting a determination from the client under new legislation.
My wife has just accepted a job (24 hours per week, nights) at a local care home - she has worked in healthcare industry previously. We decided this as a precautionary move in case current client decided to terminate contract and I was tempted by a permanent role. She won't be able to start this job until after Christmas due to the required DBS checks.
Assuming wife was around 4 weeks pregnant...
a). If she rejected the care job and stayed working for my company, if outside IR35 status persisted, would she be entitled to maternity pay? Could my company reclaim this from HMRC?
b). If she took the care job, does the 26 weeks working requirement include time working for my company, or does the clock reset with the start date for new job?
Sorry for garbled post - heads in a mess at the moment. I'm over the moon, but I don't want to stitch ourselves up financially... - a "go perm or leave" response from my client; no maternity pay and no opportunity to work for 18+ months would be far from ideal, and as I am really enjoying working for current client (especially after last client was an utter disaster), a perm offer would be tempting, but realistically we'd need some form of secondary income to make this viable.
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