Self employment and maternity allowance

Hi All

I'm hoping someone will have the answer and can clear something up for me. If you are self employed and claim maternity allowance, after your 10 keeping in touch days, if you choose to go back to work before the 39 week period is up you lose all of your maternity allowance (or thats certainly how I believe it to be).

Just today I got talking to another minder who said that her assistant has just come back off maternity leave (registered as self employed) and she was apparently allowed to work 10 hours a week without losing any of her maternity allowance as the HMRC allows this to ensure the business can continue? I was advised to check on the HMRC website but I cannot see this stated anywhere.

This doesn't seem right to me and I can't find it anywhere to validate this.

Would be good to find out as I am in discussions about when I will go back to work and this could potentially influence my decision.

Thanks all

SwanLake xx

No idea what the answer is but I'm watching with interest! Can I also be cheeky and ever so slightly hi jack your thread by asking does anyone know -if you pay class 2 NI contributions do you automatically get the full maternity allowance or is it 90% of your weekly earnings if that's lower as stated on hmrc website? x

Well I am going back 5 years but I did get full maternity allowance and I have always paid class 2 ni

Deb

I'm getting full maternity allowance as well and I paid my class 2 x