Unpaid maternity leave - how much do I lose?

Hello
I need some financial advise as I am clueless when it comes to taxes.
I am currently on maternity leave and I have to decide very soon if I am going to take any unpaid leave. I was wondering if someone can explain to me how much more or less or exactly me and my husband are going to lose if I take all 16 weeks.
My gross salary is around 42k plus around 2k (gross) bonus.
My husband's salary is around 59k and 4k (gross) bonus.
We haven't applied yet for joint assessment, but we will soon. We got married in March 2014.
My questions are:
1. Does it matter if I transfer the ax credit to my husband or in any case I will get it when I go back to work?
2. How much is the tax credit if I get 16 weeks unpaid leave? I.e. how much more will my husband get on the months I will be on unpaid leave?
3. (maybe this falls under my work's policies) Will my pension contribution stop from my employer's side? Will they still take my pension contribution even if I don't get a salary?
4. If I want to have an accurate assessment of all this, where can I get it?

Many thanks

It really depends on how much your taxable earnings are for 2014.

If you have income in your own right of €32,800 (including maternity benefit) then there is no benefit to be had.

If you have less than this then there may be some benefit but as you were only married in 2014 you will have to wait until the end of the year to recover the benefit.

If you have no income then clearly you are down that much, if your income is below €32,800 then your husband could use some of your band next year but you will not have that available to you when you return to work.

Thanks for the reply Joe_90 but I think I need some explanation.
Apologies for my ignorance, but I am not sure what you are asking. Isn't the taxable earning the same as my salary? If not, can't they be calculated based on my salary?

Thank you both. I have read material from revenue many times but as I am not good with taxes it didn't make perfect sense to me. This is why I posted here hoping for a more simple explanation.
I will research more and drop by a revenue office.

Probably your payroll section would be the best way to go about asking these questions. However, failing that you might be able to get a reasonable idea using my Excel spreadsheet calculator available at http://taxcalc.eu/monthlyss.

However, you'd need to apply certain settings to the calculator in order to include maternity pay and changes in tax credits so it's not totally straightforward. Leave a message here or PM me if you need a hand using it.

Thanks so much deadlyduck!